Keith G. Alderman

On the Scherl

BOOK ONE: SCHERDAL
Chapter 1: On the Scherl

“If you want to know the Will of the Wisp, get on the water.”
– Rusalki, (from “Advent Journies across the Seas”)

***

The autumn sun bled through the branches of elm, poplar, and oak like the strings of an orchestra stretched tight against the forest. Their song was birds and insects bounding and chirruping upon their warm, amber gold canopy. Drifting over the air, like a spider forms her web across the wind in fluttering beauty, the branches hung in bated anticipation, hoping to touch and hold one another’s fingertips. Under their warm, crusty palms, a fat, black and blue river ran.

The Scherl. Named for her slow, meandering wind through the forests, towns, and open meadows. Her headwaters were deep in the Ettinskelf mountains where from she rumbled down until losing her mind and leaping off Madloch Falls into the midnight blue, tranquil loch below. From there, she split east and west like the very strength of the falls severed her soul. East, she traveled along open meadows and marshes before turning sharply south toward the Rusalki Sea. West, the Scherl traveled in winding, zig-zag patterns through the dense forests until pouring into the Glaucus Sea.

It was along this river thread that many of the Town of Scherdal’s animals found their nourishment and livelihood; and here, along the placid, deep waters, a fox paddled his raft in quiet solitude upstream the river. He closed his eyes and listened to the dropping walnuts and persimmons on the river, felt the air under his long red ears, and sniffed the aroma of honey and tea from town a wharleigh away.

“Aye, fisher-fox!”

Rasicare winced at the sound of Mutton’s gritty, bad-tempered voice. He kept his eyes shut so Mutton wouldn’t see them rolling and tried not to raise his shoulders when sighing. The ugly, fat muskrat was making his way upstream the Scherl on his log raft; standing next to him was his fishermate, a beaver named Domino, who was busy steering the stern away from some oncoming debris.

“You ketch’em any fish yet ‘oday?” hollered Mutton. “Any worth relic’n? Heh heh heeheehee.” Mutton giggled himself into a fit that nearly tipped him from his log raft. He balanced himself unorthodoxly and pointed back to Domino. “Keep it steady, ya flat-tailed ninny.”

“Weren’t my fault your fat head nearly toppled o’er,” shouted back the beaver.

“Heh heh heh heeheehee—Aye, fisher-fox! ‘teady up fer us ta dock ‘longside a ya.”

The muskrat paddled to Rasicare at the center of the river and dug his claw into the bow of his raft. The rafts notched together and Domino dug his oar into the muddy stream bed to anchor them against the soft current. “Ain’t no reason fer ya’s to be chasin’ off without saysin’ a li’l hello. Heh heh.”

“Hello, Mutton,” Rasicare replied, visibly irritated. He turned to the beaver onboard and nodded. “Domino.”

“‘Ey, Rascal,” the beaver replied and slapped his tail on the deck in a gesture of good faith. “Any luck on the Scherl today?”

Rasicare looked upstream. “Couple of crappies and pinfish. But nothing worth keeping. I think something’s scaring the big fish off these days.”

“Prolly your redheaded wherewithal,” said Mutton, who hadn’t lost his grin yet.

Rasicare smiled sharply. “What about you?”

“Some bream and brownies.” The beaver lifted a ribbon of fish from the boat’s starboard. “Worth keeping, but I agree—game is skittish.”

Mutton sneered, and his face looked rotten and skewed. “Maybay dem ‘roggers from Farnwal got in the water and soiled it upstream. Hate dem, ‘roggers. Can’t trust a blimey, slipperily little frog with your rod, much less your river.” The muskrat spat in repugnance and to Rasicare’s amazement, the disgusting projectile flew thirty paws across the Scherl.

“It weren’t no frogs, you water-rat!” A voice shouted from the southern bay.

“Aye! Who dat? Who daren’t calls me dat?!”

Out from behind a dammed up partition of stuck branches and brush, a spry otter flicked his head into view. His face was cockeyed, and he grinned like a fired up salesmate. “I did!” He shouted. “And I’ll do it again, water-rat. You’re out here shouting and blubbering like a rock dove; there’s no wonder I can’t catch a measly meal. Call on the Wisp! You are a pitiful sight to see on a beautiful river-run day.”

Rasicare smirked and breathed a little easier to have Jands in his company when surrounded by such imbeciles as Mutton and Domino.

“Oi!” shouted Domino, giving his due respect to the better fishermate. “Didn’t see you over there, Jands. We weren’t to be so loud—”

“So loud!” shouted Jands, not through with his verbal abuse. “You mean so loud to harass and irritate a poor fool fox like Rasicare out here on the river?” His voice was so deafening that Rasicare wondered if someone could hear it all the way back in town. He cringed. “Ain’t his fault he’s terrible at fishing,” Jands continued. “What you got—four webbed claws and a flat rear to cut through the water? Pardon me, Rasicare. Just need to put these blasted nincompoops in their rightful places at the bottom of the food chain.”

“Aye, nuff a dat, Jands,” shouted Mutton. “We’s all jus’ havin’ a friendly talk out on da Scherl.”

Jands paddled out from behind the floating partition and revealed his pristine pine-yellow canoe. In a few quick strokes, he was docked against the two log rafts. He lowered his voice finally, drifting back into the smooth demeanor he reserved for fishing.

“The fish are disappearing,” he whispered. “Started up about a fortnight ago, but been getting worse since. I reckon something is going on upriver to deter them. Maybe something big hunting like Rasicare suggested.”

“I’m tellin’ ya’s,” Mutton muttered. “It’s dem ‘roggers in Farnwal.”

Rasicare found his voice again. “What did a frog ever do to you?” he snarled.

“Aye, one of dem done bite my GrandPaw on the leg and ‘eerily drown’d him in the Little Fern when I was but a bitty pup.”

Rasicare shook his head and smirked. “Everyone’s heard that ol’ tale about so and so’s GrandPaw.”

“Serve’s your GrandPaw right, Mutton,” Jands butt-in resolutely. “He shouldn’t be swimming down in the Little Fern anyway. And you never stopped being a bitty, water-rat.”

Rasicare’s mouth dropped and panted, something he carelessly did when excited. Realizing it, he awkwardly closed it and smiled sheepishly.

Mutton bowed his chest out. “Water you grinnin’ at, fisher-fox?”

The fox collected himself and leaned back on his paddle. He hadn’t any desire for a fight; any sensible animal knew that Mutton wouldn’t stand a chance against a fox, but the water beneath their boats gave the muskrat an exceeding advantage.

“Careful mate, Rascal’s been called,” warned Domino the beaver sarcastically, shaking his paws in short frantic motions and staring wide-eyed like a clown.

“‘im?! He’s been called by the Will o’ the Wisp?”

“He told my sister thatta season ago. When he was real little, alone with his Paw.”

Mutton, realizing his upper paw over the fox, found himself giggling again. “Heh-heh-hehehe! Whoever ‘eard a fox that did somethin’ good? Called by the Will o’ the Wisp—what a buncha duck scat dat is!” The muskrat spat a heaping arch of saliva onto the bank. “I says tha ol’ doe’s-tale is just dem fireflies flickern a’ noight. And anybeast’s ‘at sees ‘em is jus’ lookin’ for a reason t’ matter.” He glared at the fox, menacingly. “How is your ol’ Paw anyways, fisherfox?”

Domino, who wasn’t the sharpest to recognize hyperbole, butt-in. “Oi, you thing da Willa da Wisp ain’t real? What ‘bouts that Eorlhart? What you say aboutten him?”

“Pfft! Eorlhar’!” said Mutton. “‘at buck is all show. Ain’t none ‘at cavalier. I says the whole Order is corrupt. Nuttin’ but a buncha thie’es and charlatans.”

“Careful, Mutton,” cautioned Jands. “You’re fishing for everything but on this river. Go in for the night.”

“Bah!” Mutton swiped his claws at midair. “Go crack a clam, Jands.”

The otter grinned and winked at Rasicare playfully. “You stay up too late again, bitty water-rat?”

Mutton kicked the bow board from under him and Rasicare’s raft spun haphazardly around toward the northern bank. Mutton giggled and sang as he spun his toward the south side of the Scherl.

“Oh, there once was a fox who thought he could fish,

but all he did was look like dis—”

The muskrat danced like a fool on the raft, sticking his nose out and extending two claws up over his head like ears. He flicked his rod and cast the line across Jands’ stern. The otter shook his head and dipped his paddle into the water. In a few strokes, he was past the other rafts and soaring down the Scherl toward town.

Rasicare ignored the imbecile on the opposite bank and slowly pushed himself against the current east, hearing the raucous wailing of Mutton and Domino as he went.

“A fox on the sea, that nobodied see’d,
Hoping and a-wishin’, he’d catch just a smidgeon.
But e’s a tod ‘at can’t fish, like ‘is paws cannit swim,
I hope ‘e trips and finally drowns, just like that Frenrick, the ugly clown!
Heh heh heeheeheehee!”

***

A thousand mittans up river, Rasicare was good and far from the foolish wailings of the fishermates, blocked by banks and branches on the winding Scherl. He spotted an unfamiliar embankment that he aimed his paddle toward, hoping to discover a school of trout hiding under her. As he approached, he saw it was not a natural rock formation, but a strange apparatus in the bubbling water.

The current rushed like foam, peculiar for the usually, slow drizzling Scherl. Rasicare pushed his raft as near as he could, but the current kept shoving him away. He aimed his raft at the north shore and grabbed hold of an overarching oak limb that he used to pull upstream around the strange object. As the raft closed in, the dammed apparatus violently buckled and kicked, as if something underneath it had lifted and let it splash down onto the rocks.

He plainly saw it now as the dilapidated remains of a fellow fishermate’s raft; a field mouse named Peter, whom he knew fairly well. It had smashed to bits, and large chunks of flotsam floated toward him. He surmised its sudden buckling came from the water, having been too much for the vessel. But where was Peter? It was very unlike the mouse to leave his raft unattended.

It had been at least a day since he saw the mouse on the water. Shouting over the bristling leaves and windy autumn rush, he waited several minutes for a reply. He paddled eastward another hundred mittans and began to feel both despondent and foolish; how long could he search for something while not knowing if it were worthwhile searching?

Perhaps Peter crashed on an embankment of rocks and had scurried himself back to town through Maidens Forest. That, of course, made the most logical sense. Peter was a good swimmer and no fishermate, as far as Rasicare knew, had ever drowned on the Scherl. But a part of him worried what would happen if he left the area. If Peter was in trouble, might he be just round the next bend, and he close to helping? But with every stroke of his paddle, and answerless response to his cries, he realized this was less and less likely. Was he helping anything at all by sitting here on his raft? If in any danger, the field mouse was more likely to find it traipsing through Maidens Forest and not on the calm Scherl. He glanced down at his string of middling fish floating in the river; they appeared wasted and lifeless. After one last shout for Peter, he turned back to town.

He floated downstream, and eventually felt better about returning to town, as one does after abandoning an open-ended mystery. He could commit a pack of better qualified animals to search for Peter. Soon this thought dissipated further into a natural belief that Peter must be home with his doe, with paws up in front of the fire, telling her about his poor luck crashing his raft and she reprimanding him for it. He laughed at the notion that he was ever concerned for Peter; the fishermouse was far better on the water than himself. Though he still intended on reporting the wrecked vessel, he knew it wasn’t worth getting anxious about.

After several nautical wharleighs filed beneath his raft, he pulled into the Scherldock. The lengthy wooden pier, nestled under rolling canvas roofs between timeworn cypress trunks, harbouring the unique and bizarre vessels of the town’s fishermates; rafts, canoes, skiffs, dinghies, and pontoons for any dog, mouse, or otter along the Scherl. At the end of the easternmost dock, with his paws dangling in the water and his head against a pylon, was a distinguished, albeit bored rat whom Rasicare could never remember the name of, but always held a dislike for, on account of the rat’s bizarre approach to life and his undeserved title of harbourduke.

“Good morning…er—H.D.,” Rasicare said, fuddling his welcome as he pulled his rafter under a canvas roof alongside Jands’ vacant canoe.

The harbourduke didn’t look his direction. “Do you ever watch the clouds on the water like waves within waves that could be everything? Pretty powerful stuff, dog.”

Rasicare ignored the harbourduke’s odd soliloquy, trying to remain hospitable. “H.D., I need to report something on the water.”

“Could be the meaning of life, fox,” the harbourduke said, finally looking Rasicare’s direction.

“About three wharleighs north, I discovered Peter’s raft. Have you seen him on the Scherldock today?”

“Which one’s Peter?”

“Peter! Peter—this tall, a field mouse, rolls out five days a week, usually on the east end fishing bream and walleye.”

“Why do we even have names, fox? You know we are all just a speck here and a speck there, gone one day and floating in the sun’s rays until another morning takes us away…” The harbourduke trailed off and his mouth fell open in nonchalance; his eyes glazed over and his head bobbed up and down like the rippling water moving downstream.

“Harbourduke! I’m here to report the absence of Fishermate Peter and his wrecked vessel!”

“Ow, dog! Stop shoutin’ at me.”

“Can you send a fresh captain up the Scherl to investigate?”

“Yeah, yeah, fox, I’ll send a cap—just stop yellin’ at me.”

Rasicare winced and pulled his stringer over his shoulder. He made his way up the Scherldock, away from the harbourduke who stared into oblivion while philosophizing about butterflies and their effect on autumn’s flowery kiss.

The dock ended at a flight of stairs, made both from stone masonry and the wooden planks that had replaced those ancient steps that time had worn away.

At its peak was the town of Scherdal; a bustling community founded on the rolling hills and treetop valleys of the Scherl that gathered its source of industry from the rich river run, dark hearty lumber, and deep sterling silver within its caves. Linked to the northernmost edge of the Scherldock was a thriving marketplace, Obadiah Square, outstretching its rumbling hubbub through the Suthe Province; full of opossum selling produce, flamingoes squawking about cheap jewelry, a skunk spraying perfume samples over her bizarre den-made candles, jittering sparrows with custom dresses, a squirrel selling healthy nuts from her healthy hut, and a family of foreign wild dogs that had moved to Scherdal recently and gave a whole new meaning to the term: flea market.

Overlooking Obadiah Square, at the top of the sloping hill, was a downtown boulevard equipped with an abandoned theatre, moss-stained community center that strictly attracted elderly mice, and a bedraggled library with an ironically loud goose as its librarian. Main Street meandered north by northwest, lined with groceries, paw’n’shops, parlours, apartments, silver quarries, lumberyards, and the old Scherdally—a hotel carved out of the towering trunk of a tereboak tree that some traveling-weasel had convinced the townsanimals to build as a means to accommodate the touring visitors venturing to see the Will of the Wisp; only the tourists never came, and now the hotel remained as converted apartments for the lower-income fishermates and lumberdogs in town.

Tumbling west, downhill over the once beautiful Scherldowns, was the West Province; a land which in the last four seasons had been uprooted and surrounded by iron bars and high brick walls. Inside was the new construction of a prim community of symmetrical dens and hutches with little room to roam, but countless places to hibernate; each with their own heated nests, automatic nut-collector, vanity, porcelain fireplace, stocked root cellar, and miniature fishery so the flock never had to leave home to forage or hunt.

Across town, the East Province was mostly abandoned except for the odd farmer or fisher who couldn’t let go of their heritage even after nature had given up on it. Its trees were nothing but hollow logs, and its dens were moss-stained dilapidated boulders; but the artist still found beauty in its quiet repose and calm sway under the wind’s sway from Maidens Forest.

Seated above it all, surrounded by a rock wall that kept the secrets and legends of Scherdal’s history and stewardship, was King Dante’s castle, the King’s Ransom; only his servants and the Order of the Ausbury ever had leave to see inside his vast, dark walls.

However, the eye was not drawn to the king’s castle, but beyond it to the ruin of the Aldamere; a magnificent cylindrical tower that looked too thin for its height, bizarrely out of place in a meadow covered in the dried remains of clover, false-strawberry, and crownbeard, on the northern outskirts of the city, connected to the castle by a portion of the wall, yet left in disrepair since its demise. Its broken and rubbled side loomed above the city like a crow watching her hunting grounds; hermitic, ominous, and glorious. Every animal in Scherdal could see its topmost balustrades and finials, from the treehouses in the East Province, to the cookie-cutter huts in the West, and even from the smelly, flea-ridden bustle of the marketplace and Scherldock in the Suthe Province by the river.

Under its distant complacent gaze, Rasicare stepped off the Scherldock’s stairway and maneuvered through a family of browsing moles at market. Opposite the commons, where families, shoppers, browsers, and pickpockets gathered under the open sun, amid the damp, cool breeze of the Obadiah Fountain, he dropped his stringer of fishes on the table of a very obese, clean-shaven, and well-to-do pig whose head was bent over and eyes closely examining the eclectic coins of a recent purchase. The pig chewed on the soaked and piddly end of a very used cigarette.

“What ‘m I s’posed to do with this? Ooinque!” the pig asked, with only a brief glance at the stringer of speckled crappies and striped yellow pinfish before he continued counting and sorting his coins.

“It’s my haul for the day,” answered the fisherfox.

“Ooinque! A haul?” the pig mocked, looking up and grinning like a swindler. His cigarette twisted and spun on his lip about to drip ash and saliva on to the desperate crappie. “This is yes’erday’s lef’overs. I’ll take ‘m off yer paws to feed my garden. But ‘m not payin’ fer ‘em.”

“You don’t have a garden, Sam,” Rasicare retorted.

“You thank ‘m payin’ fer dead minnows. Who gonna buy ‘em ferm ‘e, fox? Ooinque!”

“I got a bit distracted on the Scherl,” said Rasicare. “Look! They are still breathing and good.”

“Read my sign, fox—Feresh Fishes! I ’n’t sellin’ this. And you’s in’t selling a’ me.”

The pig resumed his examination of his coin collection and altogether ignored the fox and his fish stringer.

Rasicare dropped his head in dramatic frustration and pulled the fish over his shoulder. He glanced at a young chipmunk who was staring up at him, presumably observing the whole exchange. “You wanna buy some fish?” Rasicare asked ironically.

Embarrassed, the chipmunk scurried away; Rasicare watched him jump into his Maw’s arms, who was sitting on the wall of the market fountain, deeply engaged with a she-beaver. He followed the pup in a glazed, meandering fashion, unaware of his unconscious action. The fountain’s misty water spritzed his long red hair as he sat on the fountain wall beneath the shadow of Father Obadiah’s statue blessing a group of sweet stone rabbit kittens. A few paws away were the beaver and chipmunk in noisy conversation. He closed his eyes, put his snout between his paws, and before he knew it, was unintentionally engrossed in eavesdropping on them.

“Well, what was it?” The she-beaver nudged her scatterbrained chipmunk friend back into the story she had dropped along the way of conversation.

“Oh, right,” the chipmunk answered, jerked back into her gossip. “Well, about two months ago, her buck Henry was out in Faereton—”

“Oh, that sounds about right.” The beaver shrugged and rolled her eyes.

“Oh, I know,” the chipmunk replied, already distracted again. “I can’t even begin to wonder what the old beaver is doing out there.”

“Is it gambling?”

“It could be anything!

“…maybe even something with the Sisterhood.”

“Oh stop! He wouldn’t be out there in all that.”

“So what happened to him?”

“Tck tck tck. So he’s coming back from Faereton and gets lost in the Faerewode.”

“Oh!” the she-beaver interrupted again, all-knowingly. “So he was drinking at the port.”

“Probably,” said the chipmunk, dropping her pup again to run away through the paws of the patrons. “But while he’s bumbling around—he bumps into some big oak and hears some strange noises…” Her eyes grew big, like her story-telling mattered. “…Shuffling in the bushes. Well, he calls out—”

“Is it the Sisterhood?”

“Hush! Stop interrupting.”

“You know they are out there.”

“Stop! So he calls out for anybeast and not a soul answers. Then, he starts back on what he thinks is the path and wouldn’t you know it—”

“What?”

“He sees it.”

“Sees what?”

“Sees it. —Bernie, stop jumping on other animals!”

“I’m not following.”

“He sees it. It-it.”

The she-beaver stared blankly at her chipmunk friend.

The chipmunk sighed, and then, oozing in mystification, she whispered, “The Will of the Wisp…”

“No!” the beaver shouted in mock disbelief.

“Yes!” the chipmunk squealed.

“Nobeast has seen It for dozens of seasons.”

“Well, Henry the beaver did.” The chipmunk crossed her little arms proudly.

“And you believe him?”

“He came back to the den in a fit and furry, all blustering and blubbering and told Sherry everything.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well, why would a buck tell his doe that he’s been down in Faereton?—unless, it’s for real.”

“That’s a strong point.”

“Not a strong point—the only point! Henry saw the Will of the Wisp.”

“Well, what did it do?”

“He doesn’t say. He got so frightened and confused that he just took off running until he fell out of the forest an hour later. But listen, the story gets better.”

“How?”

“Well, it started going around. All these animals in the West Province spreading rumors like hens in a coop, and then wouldn’t you believe—a cat, a month later, shows up in town and says, ‘I saw the Will of the Wisp.’”

“No!” The beaver held a paw up to her mouth.

“Oh yes! And she says it spoke to her. Told her to come find it again.”

“So she was ‘called’?”

“Well, I don’t know if you should call it that. But It told her to tell others that It would be back during the next new moon.”

“My goodness.”

“And guess what tonight is…”

The beaver shrieked at the realization and threw her paws over her mouth. “The new moon!”

“It’s the talk of the town. I can’t believe you haven’t heard of it yet. You really need to get over to the West Province more often. Get out of that nasty old apartment in the Scherdally.”

“We are trying. Francis is hoping for a promotion next spring at the quarry.”

“Oh, right,” said the chipmunk with obvious disdain.

The she-beaver curled her lips awkwardly and shifted the conversation back. “Well, is anybeast going to Faerewode to see if it comes back?”

“Oh, of course! I should have told you. Yes! All the West Province is going, I’m sure. And word keeps spreading through the rest of the city. Get this—the Order of the Ausbury is supposed to be there. Tell me that isn’t a sign it’s for real.”

Rasicare leaned closer, ashamed for eavesdropping, but incredibly intrigued. He couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Excuse me,” he interrupted and cleared his throat. “The Order of the Ausbury is going into Faerewode to search for the Will of the Wisp?”

The chipmunk and beaver turned, irritated by the rude intrusion. “She says her friend’s buck saw it two months ago during the new moon.”

“But in Faerewode?” Rasicare asked skeptically. “That doesn’t make sense. The Will of the Wisp wouldn’t be in Faerewode.”

“Tck tck tck! Who are you—a Brethren of the Order?” The chipmunk cocked her head and stuck her lips out.

“Ha! A dingy fox, a part of the Order!” The beaver mocked.

“Ow!” Rasicare spun around to discover the pup had climbed the fountain wall behind him and had just planted his shoed paw into his hip; his tongue was sticking out at him.

“Bernie!” the chipmunk mother shouted past Rasicare. “Don’t kick homeless animals! Come here—no, Bernie, wait, no, don’t run through that sow’s dress. Come back. BERNIE!”

Rubbing his hip, and flopping his dead fish over his shoulder, Rasicare left the beaver and chipmunk who were now busy chasing Bernie through Obadiah Square.

Could it be true? How could it be true? A wandering beaver had seen the Will of the Wisp in a paltry, dim night, deep within the Faerewode. No eye had seen the Wisp for a generation. A rare happening that once never was; merely a myth passed along from generations hence by Paws and Maws. And none had heard its whisper since the Aldamere’s destruction. Well, almost none. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. What could this mean? Was Scherdal’s glory returning? —But why in the Faerewode?
Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home
Chapter 22

Late afternoon came with a cool breeze and lovely spirit over the mountain. The pleasing opera of thrushes, cardinals, warblers, and wrens echoed in the forest. Wind swept inside the crown of the canopy and sent a shower of leaves below. In the distance, a crow’s caw faded away, and a woodpecker cackled under the sound of cicadas singing to the sun. A mile over the forest, clouds bellowed and an eagle chirped while she soared with them. A chipmunk tip-toed through the grassy downs that waved goodbye in the wind.

The children had a hard time keeping themselves from skipping the entire way back, slowing only to lug up the steep mountain passes or along the shelf over Dark Canyon. Their spirits were high. They felt like experts of the forest, passing on the same footpath numerous times. By the time they reached the summit over Weeper’s Run, they raced each other down the steep side, bouncing off tree trunks and sliding on wet leaves, laughing and screaming. With their victory behind them, they let nothing out but joy and silliness.

On the far side of Long Creek, they stopped their frolic when they heard the two urgent cries of their parents through the trees. “Marian! Esther! Herbert!”

“Mom and Dad,” Marian gasped.

Humble responsibility fell on them like a cinder block, and each tucked their head between their shoulders and sprinted over the hill to the gate entrance. None of them said a word, but each felt an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of their stomachs; one like you get when you know your parent is unhappy, but you must go to them, regardless.

They heard their parent’s speaking to one another on the far side of a silver maple. “Oh, Jesus, thank you—I can hear footsteps,” Mrs. Dolor said.

“There!” Mr. Dolor shouted.

The children saw two blurred figures through the tree-line racing toward them.

“Marian! Esther! Herbert!” Mrs. Dolor shouted with anger. “I cannot believe you would leave again without saying a word! After we just talked about this. I have been so worried—sick with fear! And Marian—you know better than—Hello, is this your friend Aaron?”

All this Mrs. Dolor blurted out between hugging and kissing the Dolor children. It delighted both she and Mr. Dolor so much to find all of them safe and sound that they forgot about how angry they were a moment ago.

“Kids,” Mr. Dolor said sternly. “You know better than to leave without saying anything. You did this yesterday, and came back bloody and muddy. I’m glad you are all okay, but not again—do you understand? One of you may have gotten hurt out there.”

“Yes, sir,” the three avowed.

“My God—what is that!” Mr. Dolor shouted. For the earth was shaking under the family’s feet, and the children wondered if Maushop had returned. But it was the gate rattling and rumbling as it slowly closed the left side, and then the right side, like an invisible hand were shutting it behind them.

“Wow!” Mrs. Dolor said.

“How did—?” Mr. Dolor questioned.

“Is it automatic?”

“Some kind of motion sensor.”

Meanwhile, Herbert slowly backed away from the group, before dropping to his knees behind a rhododendron on the side of the gate’s right pillar. He ran his fingers along the bottom, feeling for the familiar shape of the eight-point star.

A strange sound came from the shadows, and for a moment, he thought the bush had whispered or sneezed at him. He stared into the web of dark leaves, but chuckled at how silly that would be.

His fingers found the hole at the bottom of the wall and he placed the new cougar figurine David Crockett had given him; just as he had instructed. The thing fit snugly and wouldn’t budge after snapping in place.

He dropped out of the rhododendron and jumped to his feet, just in time to receive a hug from Aaron on his way home.

“See ye’ns at a-bus stop, Monday,” Aaron said to the others, and picked up his bike.

The next few weeks went by with little significance. There were no more sightings of Tsul ‘Kalu, the unicorn, or the creepy Mr. Dauer. Mr. Dolor was even at home more and the family’s movie-nights and board-games returned. Life became simpler and less remarkable, which the children did not mind at all.

Although, one remarkable thing happened, and that was now Aaron spent a lot more time with the Dolors at school and home. And he even went back to his cousin Vinnie to apologize for tricking him. Vinnie forgave him with little effort; apparently, he had always known Aaron had faked the photo, and it had hardly consumed his thoughts anymore, ever since he started looking for new photos of strange beasts.

The children liked Lanier Elementary a lot more now. Marian’s teacher recognized her as the brightest in the class and often asked for her help during study-hour. The girls in Esther’s class loved the immaculate marigold she wore in her pigtails. And no one dared make fun of Herbert for any reason, or they had to answer to Aaron.

One Friday afternoon, the children reminisced about their funniest stories in the forest, sitting at the kitchen table while Mrs. Dolor made dinner.

“Remember the way Herbert looked riding on Aaron’s back in the cave, with his glasses down around his face?” Marian laughed.

“Yeah, he looked like a goofy cartoon,” Esther jeered.

“I almost died!” Herbert shouted, laughing through his milk at them. “And what about Esther drooling all over herself on Balaam’s back. Oh, I’m so injured…oh, my leg might fall off.”

“That never happened, Herbert.” Esther rolled her eyes at him. “But, for real, nothing was as funny as when Marian tripped in the thicket in Fool’s Pass and got her butt stuck in that gopher tortoise’s hole!” Esther cackled.

“Balaam had to pull you out with his tail!” Herbert shouted.

All three roared with laughter.

“What are you three talking about?” Mrs. Dolor asked while stirring a pot of spaghetti.

“Nothing,” Marian said, and noticed six plates at the dinner table.

“I remember having fun,” said Herbert.

“I did too,” Esther smiled.

“Oh! And ice-cream at Mr. Mewbourn’s.”

“We need to go see him again!”

“And the new treehouse!”

Just then, the front door opened and scraped the wooden floorboards. The children cheered, “Daddy!”

Mr. Dolor stepped through the threshold with his hands full of boxes, bags, and papers. He was sopping wet from the storm outside.

“What’s all that, dear?” Mrs. Dolor asked.

Mr. Dolor dropped the things on the floor with a loud bang. “I told you already, honey,” he huffed and puffed. “I’m thrilled about the direction our business is headed. New real estate. New banking partners. New opportunities—oh good, you made a spot for him at the table. Kids, my boss will be staying with us for a little bit until we get it all figured out.”

The children’s eyes widened when they watched the heavy footfalls of Professor Ludwig Wolfgang entering their home. He stood in the foyer, dressed in a black trench coat, water dripping from his black fedora.

“Living with us?” Marian asked, shocked.

“Ah,” Professor Ludwig Wolfgang sighed. “Home sweet home.”
The End of the Beginning

The End of the Beginning
Chapter 21

The field sighed in relief, the wild animals crept out into the sunlight again, and all became calm. A blue mist fell from the sky, smelling like lavender and honey, and draped across the Field of Atagahi. The children backed away from the mysterious cloud before recognizing its strange formations gathering into the glow of the Ghost of David Crockett.

“You’re back!” Marian shouted in excitement.

Noya perked up from Herbert’s shoulder and flew to David Crockett, dancing and spinning around him like a jubilant firefly.

“Shiyo asiwu, yunwi-tsunsdi,” said he to the faerie.

Then the Ghost turned to the children. “I ne’er departed, Marian,” he replied. “You only failed t’ see me. ’Twas there alongside when the storm nearly pushed you from the cliff, Herbert. ’Twas I whom called Noya t’ your side in the cave of the Uktena. ’Twas I whom led Balaam t’ you in Merry-Hollow. And I stood among you here, when you thought you ‘ad first failed. But you ‘ad merely forgotten the thing you needed back at the start. I’m very proud, Herbert.” (Here he looked Herbert in the eyes.) “You spoke the truth, and that takes a bit of integrity, I know. For I as a young lad your age would not ‘ave done such a thing. I beg to believe great things are ‘head you, young man.”

Herbert smiled, sheepishly. “Thank you.”

“Can you please tell us what is going on now?” Marian asked. “We are here. We did what we think you wanted us to do.”

“Why is your grave here?” Esther asked.

“What-all theys Arm’ of Bones and Maushop?” Aaron butt-in.

“Where did they go?” Herbert added.

David Crockett smiled. “Maushop and the Nunnehi are a tale for another moment,” he replied. “Alas, I will tell ‘bout this spring and how I come t’ be h’re in this manner.

“Jim Bowie was sick; poisoned. And I in a desp’ration to heal him. He and I ‘greed Atagahi must be discov’red; in it lie the only way t’ cure him. I left him w’th the Cherokee, and ventured forth ‘lone. On the second day heading northeast, I came ‘pon the River Pactolus. On the following midday, I discov’red Atagahi; she glimm’red as beautiful as she rests ‘oday. But I was not ‘lone. A vile battle broke afore me; the Army of Bones and the Nunnehi fought, for wh’t, I dins’t know ’t the time. I was mortally wound’d, and a’ my last breath when the Yunwi-Tsunsdi—like my friend Noya, ‘ere—bade the Nunnehi lower me ’n-to the still waters. I was saved, but not ’s a man ‘ny long’r. The wound w’s not one any healing can ret’rn t’its nat’ral state. Eternity ran through my spir’t, and my blood and bones fell away. And from thence, I und’rstood the end from the beginning, and w’th it the need t’ protect such a mon’ment as this.”

“Why keep it a secret?” Marian asked.

“There is a belief in someth’ng we call the Convergence. ’Tis the belief that when the power and promise of the past converge, we shall see great pain. And with that pain, salvation. There are those whom b’lieve the Convergence is ‘pon us. And this place—Atagahi—’s not meant for th’se who pierce with pois’ned spears, or th’se that serve the ones who do.” David Crockett looked across the shimmering lake. “’Tis meant for something grander.”

“Why were the skeletons and Nunnehi fighting?” asked Herbert.

David Crockett smiled at the young boy. “Those words are yet t’ be told.”

“Why did we have to come here?” Esther asked. “Couldn’t you have closed the gate at any time?”

“Unfortunately, no, Miss Esther,” replied the Ghost. “Once ’twas broken, Maushop knew ‘is place t’ guard th’s Lake. He was und’r the strictest of ord’rs t’ move for naught, even unto me. For only those who bring ‘is little people back were worthy for him t’ move. Sadly, with Maushop a’ the Lake, the Yunwi-Tsunsdi would no longer ‘ave a home, and their abs’nce would cause the spring t’ lose its power. And that would be very bad for us all.”

“The faeries bring the power to the Lake?” Esther asked.

“Some would th’nk they do,” David Crockett chuckled. “But no—they ‘nly sustain it.”

“Seem like a backard system,” Aaron muttered.

“It may seem strange ‘oday, but one day you may see that each puzzle piece matters.”

“So are all the monsters going to return to the Enchanted Forest?” Herbert wondered. “The Tsul ‘Kalu? The unicorn? Will the gate shut so the giant snake-monster stays inside? Is our dad going to be alright?”

David Crockett smiled knowingly at the boy again. “What’s set in motion for your fath’r’s safety is set in motion,” replied he. “You needn’t worry, but only believe. As I said before, many monst’rs ‘er’ out there already—”

“—Hold on!” Aaron injected. “Ye’n means shettin’ the gap wadn’t evers gonna get ridda all them boogers round town?”

“I nev’r said it shall, young Aaron,” replied the Ghost. “Only that this forest must be protected from th’se outside.”

“Well, don’t that amount to a poot in a windstorm?”

David Crockett smiled at the young fiery man. “The gate will cl’se if you can succeed once more at your departure. And that shall keep Uktena ‘nd oth’rs at bay. The unicorn, my dear friend Diamond (for that ’s his Christian name), I sent ’n a quest for reasons that are yet t’ be told. As for Tsul ‘Kalu—‘y don’t you ask him yourself?” He pointed his glowing finger over the children.

There on the edge of the glade was the massive ape-figure Tsul ‘Kalu; his vibrant gray and yellow hair blew in the wind and brilliant white eyes flamed at them.

Before the children could respond fearfully, (although they found it was near impossible to be afraid in that place), Tsul ‘Kalu crossed the glade and addressed the Ghost.

“You were right, David,” said the ten-foot-tall Hairy Figure. “I have nothing but failure in our mission. The leaders in Virgin-ia care only for argument and their own dreary voices; there is no action in them. None would listen; I bade my offering, but the people merely formed fairy-tales of my search for a bride and murder of livestock. As if Tsul ‘Kalu did not have Ahyoka in Newton.”

“I am sorry, friend,” replied Crockett. “I ‘ad hope f’r them.”

Tsul ‘Kalu smirked. “You needn’t lie to make me feel better.” The ape-man studied the children. “I still don’t see it in them; but the stars never lie.” He turned back to David Crockett. “Has Diamond returned?”

David Crockett shook his head slowly and despondent. “I am uncertain of his return.”

Tsul ‘Kalu nodded knowingly.

“If I may,” said David Crockett. “Will you reconsid’r crossing the lake with me?”

“Tla, David,” replied Tsul ‘Kalu. “After I retrieve my wife, we shall disappear over the Southern Marsh. Good-bye, good Ghost.” Without another word, the ape-man stomped across the glade and turned northwest at its trees.

“You see, children,” Crockett said. “E’erything has a purpose.”

“But who are you trying so hard to keep out of the forest?”

A splash of hot wax hit the ground behind the children; they turned to see an oily stain burning into the grass. A pair of crocodile and snake-skinned shoes kicked the dirt and covered up the stain. And standing in those shoes was the thin, pale, and altogether unpleasant, Mr. Dauer. He held out his top-hat and bowed before the children.

“Speakin’ of that ol’ canker,” Aaron muttered under his breath and then shouted. “Get outta heres, booger-man!”

“Hello, old friend,” Mr. Dauer addressed the Ghost, ignoring Aaron. “What’s it been—one-hundred-sixty years?”

“Something like that,” replied David Crockett. “Why ‘re you in ‘y forest?”

The Top-Hat Man scowled and his neck twitched. “These wonderful children let me in, friend.” Here he opened his shaking arms and a cloud of dust puffed from his cufflinks.

“That’s a lie!” Herbert hollered at him.

“Be still.” David Crockett held his hand out to Herbert. “You needn’t adv’cate for me, while I adv’cate for you.”

“Herbert doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut—do you, Herbert?” Mr. Dauer asked slyly. “Always opening it to lie and steal.”

“That’s enough!” Marian shouted.

The Top-Hat Man ignored her. “Did you always grow up blaming others and lying your way to your parents’ and sisters’ affections, Herbert? Are you doing that with David Crockett now, too? Will you ever actually deserve the love you get, Herbert—or will you just keep lying to get it?”

“Herbert,” whispered David Crockett. “Look ’t me.”

Herbert turned away from Mr. Dauer and looked at the Ghost. He was kneeling down next to him. “The Good Lord needn’t you t’ be perfect,” the Ghost looked him in the eyes and smiled. “And I needn’t that either. I just needeth you to trust me. Do you trust me, Herbert?”

Herbert nodded. With everything in him, he wanted so badly to hug the ghost, but knew he would go right through him.

The Ghost of David Crockett rose and faced Mr. Dauer. “Something beyond the Old Magic declares that you ‘ave already lost.”

“And something tells me I’ll have another chance.” Mr. Dauer grinned. He reached his hand up and unplugged the cork from the side of his head. He tilted it, and wax and oil dripped on the ground. “See you soon, Dolors,” he said. And at the tap of his cane, he vanished before them.

The children looked about the torn up glade and back to one another, searching for where the Top-Hat Man had disappeared to; but they saw only the rubble and debris of where the Army of Bones had emerged.

“Don’t fret ‘bout him, children,” Crockett encouraged. “Now,” said he, moving a step back and gesturing to the Lake. “Drink. Taste and see that the water is refr’shing.”

The children hesitated. “But,” Marian rebutted, “Maushop said we weren’t allowed.”

“And ’t ‘nother time he was right. But t’day, you can drink. For t’day you need the waters, and another day, you shall need the bathe.”

The children came to the lake’s edge and bent down. Their cupped hands brought a mouthful to their lips. It tasted like honey on their tongues, but in their stomach it felt sour and bitter.

“Do this means we-all a-live forever?” Aaron asked, wiping the residue from his lips.

David Crockett chuckled and shook his head. “No, you would ‘ave t’ die in the waters t’ b’come et’rnal,” replied David Crockett. “However, it shall protect you against some sirens and spells.”

“‘at don’t make a speck a sense,” Aaron muttered.

At that moment, something wonderful and miraculous began to occur. A flurry of humming wind crept from all four corners of the glade. The children wondered if it were an incoming rain until they saw the glowing flicker of faeries illuminating on the trees and forest-floor. Millions of twinkling lights—pinks, blues, reds, oranges, purples, greens, and yellows—came from all directions, and surrounded the children like a tornado of color and light. They were blinding and fantastic, terrifying and exhilarating; buzzing torpedoes of light shooting around each of them in a graceful dance of joy and harmony.

Herbert felt the gentle tug of Noya on his shirt collar and bowed his head to feel the beautiful damsel kiss him on the cheek and watch her wave him a goodbye; she had found her home and Laurel family again, and for that he was overwhelmed with a joy he did not know he had inside.

She was gone in a second; amidst all the wild anthem of color and blurring wind. He searched through it, with happy tears in his eyes, until he caught a glimpse of her familiar emerald glow emanating in the canvas of color. All the while, the dance pulsated in lights, colors, and grace. One moment, they thought they comprehended that the dance formed a kind of story about the birth of the forest and the people chosen to protect it, but in the next instant it became confusing and nonsense again. A moment later it was a story about a nation of people separated by a great, rushing river; and the next, they saw the story of the water-spider that brought fire to the first peoples. Then, they saw the story of Tsul ‘Kalu finding his bride in the foothills and visiting her every night under the cover of darkness until their wedding night. Then, they saw the story of Uktena and how men would travel all over the forest to find it, to test their worth and mettle; and whomever retrieved the beast’s flaming crest would earn the rank of Wonder-Worker among the tribe. The stories of light and color lasted hours, but the faeries danced and pranced about the spring waters as if time did not matter to them, even long after the children had left.

David Crockett led them through the western path across the Dead Valley, back to the Pactolus. “I am v’ry pleased you came, child-ren,” the Ghost said. “And so proud you ‘ave banded together.”

“David Crockett,” Marian said. She held his ancient journal in her trembling hands. “The journal you left behind. I read it several times but never understood it. I’ve heard words said today—like the Nunnehi. Who are they? What does this all mean?”

“The book ’s already finish’d,” Crockett smiled. “The reader just need t’ learn how t’ read the pages.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Keep it. One day you will.”

The Ghost took off his coonskin hat and held it between his hands. “Herbert,” said he. “I need you t’ do something verily important for me.”

“Okay,” Herbert said, bowing his head reverently.

The Ghost of David Crockett pulled from his hat a glowing cougar artifact, identical to the one still in Herbert’s hands. “I told you that once more you must accomplish something for me. In this, I need you t’ return it t’ the gate whence you leave. The artifact you possess now won’t work henceforth. But you can keep it as a memento. I can’t hand this one to you, you know. I’m a ghost, after all. So you must take ’t from me.” Herbert reached to remove the glowing artifact out of his hand, and just as he extended his fingers, it dropped through David Crockett’s hand and landed in the grass. The glowing artifact no longer looked translucent and blue, but ordinary as the one in his hands.

“Oh,” Herbert said, examining the two artifacts. “It’s not like the other one. Or…I think it got damaged. There’s a chip on the side of the cougar’s face.”

“I’m sure ’twas always there, Herbert,” David Crockett smiled. “No need to fret. Just make sure to insert the correct one into the gate for me.”

“Yes, sir,” Herbert replied.

“And Esther,” David Crockett looked at the sweet young girl with pig-tails and muddy sneakers. “’tis only fair that you r’ceive something, too, as your sist’r has ‘y journal and Herbert the artifact.” He removed from his hat a yellow marigold, just like the one she had pulled from the riverbank; its smell was rich, ripe, and full like honey. “It shall ne’er wilt,” said the Ghost. “And I’m sure it shall bring you favor.”

Esther took the flower from his hand and a tear dropped onto the top of it. “Thank you,” she whispered, and placed it in her pig-tail.

“What bout me?” Aaron shouted snidely.

David Crockett smiled. “Your gift is nothing at-all, Aaron,” said he. “Because ’n that gift you will gain the most.”

Aaron’s jaw dropped and he shook his head like he might curse.

“I’m happy we met, children,” said the Ghost. “But I also must warn you. Life has a habit of growing much hard’r after one accomplishes something great. It ne’er becomes easier; only more meaningful. Remember that I shall always be near, as I was ’n the forest.”

He put his coonskin hat on his head, threw his long rifle over his shoulder, and bowed before them. “Dolor children. Aaron. I wish you a merry goodbye. Your parents are wait’ng for you, and I’m sure you best get home afore they get too worried. The gate will ‘emain open ‘ntil you leave.”

The blue mist faded like a foggy morning meeting the warmth of the rising sun, and the Ghost drifted away. His eyes remained in the air for a moment longer than the rest of his translucent body until nothing was left but a flash and sparkle of light.
The Army of Bones

The Army of Bones
Chapter 20

Through the gate, up the hill, running through Long Creek, over the steep mountain, down its rocky backside, across Weeper’s Run, along the shelf upon Dark Canyon, between Fool’s Pass, skipping on the downs, rounding Lake Pactolus, and cutting across her deep, rushing river.

They had left the house at once. The cougar figurine was the artifact! And with adrenaline coursing through their veins and a mild understanding of the path, the journey past twice as fast.

The sun cocked in the mid-afternoon sky, baking their backs, and yet not one of them grew tired or frustrated. The forest was a familiar home now; birds, trees, and scurrying animals were their distant cousins. Strange noises and creeping critters reminded them of happy times, climbing over mountains and pressing through thickets, clutching Balaam’s hide and following his direction.

They crossed the Pactolus eagerly, keeping an ever watchful eye out for the Rock Faeries, like Noya had shown them. On its far side, they laughed while recalling the joy they had of swimming and drinking from the cool, refreshing lake with Balaam. Water splashed against their bare feet while they stole up the shore in skips and fervent delight. On the upper coast, Marian handed out snacks she had stolen from the kitchen, and each of them refilled their water bottles, before heading inland across the Dead Valley. After a hot half-hour, they were at the felled sugar-berry. Aaron and Herbert stepped in first, holding branches down with their feet, and others up with their hands, until the girls past.

The group emerged on the far side, huffing and puffing in a thick, humid sweat. They brushed the leaves and debris from their faces and hair to see the peaceful Field of Atagahi; the deer dallied, the bears bumbled, and the rabbits rolled. Maushop was still leaning against the weeping willow, with his right hand dipped in the lake, as if he hadn’t moved a muscle since they had left him the day before; though his frown had turned shades gloomier.

“Good afternoon, Maushop,” Marian greeted him.

He looked a bit surprised to see them and smiled meekly. “Dolor children,” replied the giant. “You’re back sooner than I expected. What has changed?”

“We found out we had what we needed all along,” Esther replied. “Right, Herbert?”

Herbert reached into his pocket and pulled out a bundle of cloth. He unwrapped the elegant cougar figurine.

“The artifact,” Maushop’s voice rolled like a bowling ball down its alley.

Something in Herbert told him he was to go to the grave without his sisters and Aaron. He left them beside the sugar-berry and crossed the ryegrass field in silence. Noya flittered next to him as he approached the feeble pillar of stones on the far end, opposite the ever-watching giant.

He rolled the figurine in his hands, and held it out in front of the large, flat piece of stone. Staring at it, he realized how much the thing had scared him before. But he never simply stopped to examine and appreciate its beauty. Its soapy white marble patterns and gemstone eyes shimmered in the daylight. How could something that caused him so much regret and pain be so beautiful now? He didn’t know what to expect, or even what an Army of Bones amounted to, but the act of placing the figurine back left him with an unbearable feeling; it felt so sacred and surreal. It felt like fear, but not terrible fear; if there were a word for it, he did not know it yet. Before him, the headstone’s inscription stared at him: “Leave your regrets here to regain life there.” He closed his eyes and prayed.

The rest of the group stood still waiting and wondering if something was wrong. Marian took a step forward, ready to help, but just then Herbert opened his eyes and shoved the eight-point star into the hole.

A raspy, clicking motion came from inside the headstone, and Herbert realized the cairn was more intricate than he had first believed; it sounded hollow and full of machinery. Herbert stepped back, and the earth below his feet shook, reminding him of the forest gate opening. Then, suddenly, like lightning hit it, the headstone splintered at the ground and a crack ran up its center. The cougar figurine fell from the face, and Herbert picked it up, confused and a bit afraid. The deer, rabbits, groundhogs, skunks, and bears ran from the field, the birds became silent and disappeared.

Maushop stood to his feet. “Live again,” he whispered, and a tear ran down his cheek.

Next to Herbert, a skeleton arm burst through the earth. Millipedes and earthworms wiggled through the digits, dirt dripped off the forearm, and the arm wagged about before grabbing his sneaker. He fell to the ground and screamed. Another hand ripped up beside his head and clawed at the earth, trying to free itself from its earthly jailhouse.

“Herbert!” The others screamed and ran for him.

The skeleton hand let go of Herbert’s foot, desiring to dig itself free from the earth instead of hold on to Herbert’s shoe. At once, Aaron, Marian, and Esther were pummeling into Herbert and helping him up. All around them, dirt clods flew six feet into the air like little flak grenades, skeleton appendages burst from the ground, and a dull but ever-spreading moaning and groaning emitted beneath them like a zombie anthem. The children imagined hundreds, if not thousands, of skeletons were waiting to rip through the ground. They raced for the tree line, hammering through, with eyes shut and shoulders lowered, as rockets of dirt and grass hit the sky, and skeleton digits arched left and right in the air.

Enough of the dirt had hurled itself up now, and full skeletons were emerging from the soil and hobbling about the field. They stumbled through the grass, dug out their lost appendages, and helped others escape the soiled prison. Dirt, grass, and insects fell through their hollow insides as they staggered on their rickety legs.

Herbert sprinted past a skeleton struggling to attach its lower jaw to its face. Marian shrieked at one using a hand it found to brush a dead grasshopper off its teeth. Aaron tripped over a femur that was being used by a legless skeleton to drag to its other extremities. Esther ran into, and then whacked away, one holding its own skull in its hands like a basketball and shaking a colony of angry ants off of it; the skeleton bounced away clumsily and screwed its skull back to its spine. The field was alive with dead people.

The entire time they ran shrieking and tumbling through the field, Noya found it hilarious and spent her time laughing and twirling; but the children did not understand her pantomimic movements and assumed she was frightened into delirium. They made it to the sugar-berry and cowered behind one of its large felled branches.

Herbert closed his eyes. “I’ve done it again,” he whispered. “It’s all my fault.”

Noya tapped him on the shoulder, but he kept his eyes shut. She flew in front of his face and poked him in the eye.

“Ow!” He opened his eyes to see what she pointed feverishly toward.

Two-hundred skeletons, frail, pale and disjointed, had gathered in front of the cairn of rocks and stone. And then, something even more magical began happening. A soft purple and red coloration burst from the dry bones and Herbert thought for a moment they were exploding; but then he saw the skeletons were forming purple muscles, pink tendons, and yellow marrow around each joint. Veins and arteries rippled out like a sea anemone and snaked their way around the skeleton, wrapping the ribs, pelvis, kneecaps, feet and skull. A piece of red flesh pulsated at the center like a jellyfish, under the sternum. It burst open, and again he thought it was something horrific and vulgar; but realized then it was the heart pumping blood into the arteries and out all over the muscles and bones, dripping down the chest, waist and thighs. And just as he feared the blood would drain all over the grass, the skin formed and laced itself over the back, stomach, hips, and face.

The skeletons weren’t skeletons anymore. They were fully formed men and women, though not one of them was taller than Marian. An army of two hundred, bare, olive-skinned men and women standing in the field before the grave. They looked at one another in bouts of confusion and awe, speaking an incomprehensible language.

“My little people,” Maushop cried. The giant crossed the field in a single bound, dropped to his knees before the crowd, and wept. “I had lost you, my little people.” His face kissed the ground before them. “But now you are alive again.”

The crowd of newly formed people left the grave behind and ran to the giant man. They were laughing and giggling as many leapt onto his back and climbed his shoulders, while others hugged his feet and legs. He stood erect, towering in the sky, while the army clutched hold of his shoulders, waist and back; others ran and danced about him singing songs and whistling in delight.

“And now I can serve you again,” his voice boomed. “Let me find a home for us to belong.”

The giant turned in stride and in two powerful steps stood at the edge of the Lake. The four children dashed forward, bewildered. They watched the two hundred laugh, skip, dance and sing, following their hero into the Lake. A thick, heavenly mist rolled over the mountain and came onto the Lake in an instant, covering the party in its white, creamy shroud; like a blurry evaporation, they slowly left the children’s view. The company teemed with joy and excitement, jumping and cheering as they disappeared onto the far side of Atagahi.

Just before Maushop completely left her view, Marian caught a glimpse of a small woman resting on the giant’s shoulder. Her hand stroked his massive neck, and her head nestled in his ear-lobe. “Squannit is alive again,” she said, smiling.

“That hem wife?” Aaron asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“I don’t know what we just did,” Herbert said. “But I’m glad we did it.”
As Big as a Giant

As Big as a Giant
Chapter 19

That evening, after a short, late supper, Herbert made his way upstairs to his room on the third floor. Dark and still, the room felt claustrophobic and unremarkable compared to the vast and lively forest he had spent his day in. He threw his stained, sweaty clothes on the floor and pulled a pair of Godzilla pajamas over his head.

A dim green light was flickering like a lightning bug underneath the pile of clothing. Herbert, curious, pulled the shirt and pants back to reveal Noya sitting at the center of his bedroom; the faerie had waited for him since she fled his mother’s presence.

Faerie’s do not like the human-world, and much less the presence of adults, who they find too sensible and careful. At the first sight of Mrs. Dolor, Noya had fled like a cottontail; but without a home to run to, she had aimed for the only thing she could think of: the Dolor house. She had flitted through the back door beside the garage and down the hall, past the study, guest bathroom, and nearly bumped right into Mr. Dolor, who had stepped out of his bedroom after a recent shower.

She had jolted into the space below the stairwell where the kids hide their toys during the day, and waited for the coast to be clear. At once, she realized she had made a terrible mistake and had aimed to leave immediately, but heard Mrs. Dolor and the kids coming back inside. Not knowing if their were a better option, and already regretting the decision to leave Herbert and his sisters without saying goodbye, she decided to flutter upstairs.

One…two…three! She spun round the stairway and up the stairwell to the second floor, assured that the kids hadn’t seen her as they gathered in the kitchen with their mother. Having peeked into room after room, she looked for what would be Herbert’s. After settling for Marian and Esther’s bedroom, she then noticed the small staircase leading up to the attic door. Success! She had seen what must have been his room through the space between the threshold. She had managed to wedge herself between and hid safely in Herbert’s bedroom until his return.

When once he recognized her, Herbert rushed forward and exclaimed! “Oh, Starlight! I’m so glad you are here!”

She touched her chin and spread her palms out at him, gesturing playfully. He smiled and wished she were the same size as him so he could hug her; they settled for her hugging his forefinger. It was nice to not be alone in his room anymore.

He sat down at his writing desk in the corner, and she fluttered to the top of it. “I’m sorry we never found your home, Starlight,” he said. “But you can always live here.”

She nodded and smiled, before looking around the room, and scrunching her face up like she smelled something bad. Noya wasn’t about to sign a deed, but she was happy to receive the gesture. She shrugged her shoulders, and walked around the top of the drawer.

“The girls have a pet, so it’ll be nice to have someone of my own,” Herbert said, before looking down and making sure he didn’t offend the faerie. She didn’t seem to notice what he had implied. She, of course, was no pet.

Instead, Noya was walking to the back of the writing desk and pointed at a small drawer.

“Oh, that,” Herbert said.

He pulled the drawer open and removed the broken cougar figurine he had hidden away three weeks prior. His thumb brushed across the delicate sharp teeth on the white and gray soapstone figurine, before placing it on the desk in front of Noya; it was about the same size as her. She placed her hands on the head of the stone figurine and pet the stiff, delicate hair, like she were brushing it back.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Herbert asked.

She nodded and smiled at him. Her gentle hands ran down the back of it, where the tail should have been. The figurine didn’t have a back end, though. Herbert had assumed he’d broken it off the gate, but the faerie discovered the back end of the figurine wasn’t broken at all; eight sharp points were jutting out like a star. She glanced back-and-forth at Herbert and pointing to the figurine.

He put his forehead on the desk, despondent. “But it’s not pretty,” he mumbled. “It’s all my fault, Starlight.” Something about the little green faerie’s presence, whether her inability to speak or her warm disposition, gave him the safety to talk about his sins.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to Dad, now. Mom’s mad at us. And monsters are gonna keep getting out all over town. And I did it, Starlight. I broke that stupid thing off the gate and the door opened. And then, I let Esther take the blame, too! And she almost died because of it! I suppose I could show you to Mom and Dad—but who knows what they would say or do if they saw a faerie? Good luck, if they don’t stick you in some science experiment instead of listening to us. Or handing you over to Professor Wolfgang.”

He sighed and watched the emerald faerie dance on the desk. In his depressed delirium, he reached for the cougar figurine next to her. She lunged forward, pulling at his thumb, and tried to show him her discovery. He shook his hand free and wiped a tear from his eye before grabbing the thing with his other hand. Noya flew into the air, pointing feverishly at the cougar figurine.

“Starlight, your light is too bright,” said he. “I can’t see what you are trying to say. Can’t you dim it?”

Knock. Knock.

Herbert jerked his head at the bedroom door. He tossed the cougar figurine into the trash bin next to his desk. Noya flew behind a stuffed-bear on top of his bed. The door creaked open and Mr. Dolor entered.

“Herbert?” He stuck his head in and flicked the light on. “Why are you sitting in the dark, son?”

“Hi, Dad,” answered Herbert.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Dolor crossed the room and sat on Herbert’s bed, noticing the tears in his son’s eyes. He grabbed a stuffed raccoon and put in under his elbow, not noticing the little green faerie dashing across the bedspread behind him.

“I missed you today, son,” said Mr. Dolor.

“I know,” Herbert replied. “Mom said you made a treehouse for us. That’s really neat. I’m sorry we weren’t here—”

“No,” Mr. Dolor interrupted. “You don’t need to be sorry. It’s my fault. I’ve been away at the office too much. And you have been trying to get used to a new town. It’s not your fault I’ve been gone and suddenly show up.”

Herbert frowned and looked down.

“But don’t worry,” Mr. Dolor continued, “I think some things are in the works, so I don’t have to be gone from the house as much.”

The two sat in silence for what felt like half an hour, but was probably only thirty seconds.

“What’s the matter, boy?” Mr. Dolor asked. “Why are you so upset, sitting in the dark and not talking? You’re not acting like my adventurous young man, Herb.”

“It’s nothing,” Herbert answered quickly, staring at the floor.

“Son…” Mr. Dolor dropped to the floor and knelt before Herbert. “I’m here. Talk to me.”

Herbert looked at his father. Dad always gave him strength.

“I did something bad,” Herbert said.

“Okay.”

“And I let someone else take the blame. It doesn’t matter anymore—I guess—what I did, but I just feel bad.”

Mr. Dolor’s lips briefly curled. His eyes were caring. “That’s called integrity, Herbert.”

“Integrity?”

“Integrity is when something you’ve done eats at you until you fix it. What do we always say Herbert: Quick to apologize—”

“—quick to forgive,” Herbert recited.

“If you done something wrong, you need to apologize, Herbert. Integrity is everything, son. It’s as big as a giant that you can never really get past. Be the same, whether someone is looking or not. Always remember that.”

Herbert furrowed his brow and sucked his lips.

“But Herbert, remember something else,” Mr. Dolor said. He lifted his arm to Herbert’s shoulder.

Herbert looked up at him.

“Someone else took all the blame before, too. And He did it so that you don’t have to beat yourself up forever. Forgive yourself. And remember that your father is proud of you. Always.”

Herbert looked down at the trash bin next to him.

***

The next morning, Herbert felt awful. He had hoped that his sleep would take away all the feelings of guilt, and for a little while it did. He had dreamt about running through a field with friendly dinosaurs after wild turkeys while giant bumblebees soared overhead; he had dreamt about his name being cheered across the school after he slam-dunked a ball in class; he had dreamt about driving a race-car through the city and off a cliff before it turned into a jet that he flew across the ocean. But when he opened his eyes, and the world slowly passed over him, he remembered his mistake and his heart ached again. After breakfast, he decided what he must do to make sure that figurine never bothered him again.

Later, the children met in the new tree-house to play. Herbert was coloring a picture next to Noya, while Esther read her book about a warren of adventurous rabbits. Marian held David Crockett’s journal tight against her chest, wishing she could figure out what they did wrong. All its contents still made little sense; brief words about the Pardo Stone; confusing descriptions of the Nunnehi and Chaneques. But none of these words ended up meaning anything on their journey. Why wasn’t there something about Spearfinger or Uktena, or even crossing the Pactolus. Why did they ever even waste their time on this book, and why did they ever waste their time on this journey? She noticed Aaron riding his bicycle in circles in front of the Dolor’s house.

“Aaron!” She hollered from the tree. His bike turned and entered the yard.

He threw the bike into the grass and grabbed the two-by-four nailed into the trunk of the tree. His elbows appeared over the floor of the treehouse and he lifted himself up. The Dolors smiled when they saw him.

“An’body else get up athinkin’ they’n dreamt all a-that?” Aaron asked, catching his breath. He looked at the green faerie walking in the middle of the treehouse and smiled.

“It’s funny,” Esther agreed. “Something about not being there anymore makes it feel like we never were.”

“What should we do?” Marian asked the group.

Noya stood on Herbert’s sneakers and tugged at his coloring book. He looked at her, and she scolded him, pulling her wagging finger out.

“Ess,” Herbert said.

“Yes?” She replied.

“I need to confess something.” Tears formed around his eyes, and his bottom lip quivered. “I let you take the blame for opening the gate. But it’s not true.”

“What do you mean?” Esther asked.

Herbert pulled the cougar figurine from his pocket. “I broke this off the gate,” he explained. “That’s when the ground started shaking. And when the gate swung open. And when the Tsul ‘Kalu came out, and the unicorn, and black mist, and David Crockett. I don’t think you really did anything. You both said we shouldn’t touch it or try to get in, but I was climbing around the corner of the gate and I broke this off the wall.”

He handed Esther the figurine, and a tear fell off his nose. Marian put her hand on his shoulder.

Aaron pursed his lips and sighed. “I bean hecka rotten to you-all sence ye’n a-moved heres,” he said. The siblings looked at him. “Ye’ns good-all friends. I jist—” He frowned and looked at the floorboards. “I ain’t got a-many friends lak you-all. I sory fer bean so nhasty to ya, Herbert, and a-fightin’ witcha, Marian.”

“Friends fight.” Marian smiled at him. “We forgive you.”

Noya fluttered up to Aaron’s cheek; her orange light shone in the sunshine while she kissed him.

“‘ey!” He shouted. “I ai’nt knows abouten all a-that kinda stuff. I jist needs to say sory, twos.”

“Herbert!” Esther seemed distracted from all the apologies and was far more interested in the cougar figurine. “Where did you say you got this?”

“I broke it off the wall next to the gate,” replied he.

“I don’t think it’s broken, Herb,” she said. “Look at this end—Herbert, I think you found the artifact that goes to David Crockett’s grave!”

“What?” Herbert asked.

“Look!” The children peered over Esther and looked at the piece of soapstone. The eight-point star looked identical to the missing piece from the gravesite.

“We ready?” Marian begged.

“I’m ready!”

“Let’s do it!”

“Hawt dawg!”
The Return Journey

The Return Journey
Chapter 18

There’s a thing terrible about leaving a journey unfinished; the feelings of guilt, worry, doubt, and anger pile on. But they do not pile in a structured order with rhyme or reason. Certainly, the onset of joy arrives with them; the joy of relief, the joy of rest, the joy of laziness. And this rhythm is bizarre and unorthodox; viz., one moment you are happy that it’s all over, and the next, sad that you must depart. The sadness can ebb and flow for days, weeks, and sometimes years; and no matter how much you try to explain why you yet feel sorrow after such lengthy times, you can’t really make anyone understand, because deep down, you don’t realize yourself why the pain is still present.

You failed when you were supposed to succeed; nothing improved when you were the one to fix it. That’s the horrid thing about failure; it creeps up into the joints of a person and festers. And it’s only by the hatred of failure that little boys and girls learn to keep pushing and keep fighting, to never give up, until they succeed. This was one of those moments for the Dolor children and Aaron. They put their lives in harm’s way, their faith in the supernatural, and stepped into a forest of endless possibilities and dangers; only to be let down at every turn until finally walking away, frustrated and beaten. To suggest that the journey out of the Enchanted Forest was gloomy is an understatement.

None of them wanted to leave, but dusk was upon them, the sky growing bleak, and they’d no other ideas of what to do. For the first hour of their walk, they kept waiting to bump into the Ghost of David Crockett and discover he was just on the other side of the hill; a little delayed and ready to help. But he never showed up, and they never found relief.

The fleeting hope flurried up inside of them again when they thought they had smelled lavender on the wind or the light caught the blue ridge just right; but gradually the thoughts grew dim and less and less often, until they started to doubt he ever existed at all. Balaam and Starlight were real enough; but their magic had lost its luster, the wonder dimmed in their mopey silence. It took every hope inside to muster up a faith that what they did somehow mattered and would make a difference; yet with every step, they further comprehended how the birds kept chirping, the deer kept bounding, and the sun kept falling no matter what they did or did not do on the earth.

The return-journey is always less remarkable. The trees do not dazzle. The animals are common, now. Time moves slower and the path travels quicker. It was just over two hours of walking and the children saw Fool’s Pass on the horizon. Great pillared canyons cut through the mountain in what once was a river run; the river had dried up centuries ago and flowed again underground to form Uktena’s Lair. Now, poplar trees and rhododendron lined a foot path through the canyon. The children remembered that deep under their feet was the deadly sea-serpent, waiting for someone to stumble upon it.

On the far side, the children followed the path south-southwest up the slippery slope where Herbert nearly fell; it seemed a lifetime ago. Here, the journey grew so painful and exhaustive that Herbert and Esther’s feeble legs could take them no further; they resorted to riding on Balaam’s back, who was gracious enough to have them.

Marian and Aaron kept with the Donkey while they followed a hovering eagle over the ridge-line and down the descent unto Weeper’s Run. The need for food became so strong that the children ached and wondered if they had ever eaten before; the idea of crawling into bed with a cheeseburger and chocolate cookies was always in their imagination.

Night fell on the mountain and they crossed Pascal’s Bridge under the gleam of the moonlight bouncing off the water. Esther remembered her first conversation with the creepy Mr. Dauer and shuddered; Herbert smiled as he recalled Pascal’s antics. “He talked funny,” he muttered under his breath.

The cold came upon them quickly, and all four huddled as close to Balaam’s furry coat as they could muster until the belabored ascent of their final mountain tested their mettle and warmed their bodies. At the top of the climb, Esther caught a frail glimpse of the strange clay markings highlighted against the white rock face over Weeper’s Run; she never would have noticed them now had she not seen them in the bright morning light.

On the mountain’s far side, the group hobbled down the steep descent southwest in sleepy dismay, wishing every moment to be curled up in bed and far from mountains and trees, yet careful not to slip on the damp muddy slope. Every few moments, they recognized another peculiar rock or leaf and thought they neared the end; only to find yet another familiar formation and be reminded again they had a long way to travel still.

Thus, the very end of a return-journey is ofttimes the longest and most irritable. Bugs are a nuisance; rocks are painful; the wind is cold; sweat drips off your nose, and your knees ache. Eventually, they heard the sound of Long Creek, and knew they were finally close to the end (or beginning, depending on how you looked at it); but even still the creek did not come from the shadows until several minutes down a slippery, jagged slope, winding from shoulder to shelf to shoulder.

Finally, they found Long Creek; its dribbling water meandered south to meet Little Tennessee River. Water smacked under their feet, and Balaam halted at its middle.

“I think it’s time I left you children,” said he.

“What?” Marian asked.

“No,” Herbert said.

It hadn’t occurred to any, until just then, that Balaam wouldn’t be able to come home with them. He was his own Animal and belonged to the forest.

“I’ll take you down the creek to the hill.” Another mile and they came to the path before the final hill of the gate. “I appreciate the opportunity to walk with you children. Fine group you are indeed,” said Balaam. “Though I’m sure you are happy to be rid of me anyway.” He smirked.

“Oh, Balaam!” Marian cried.

Herbert and Esther dismounted from his back and the four children wrapped their arms around the Donkey and kissed him a thousand times. “Hee-haw,” Balaam whispered, and a tear ran down his long face.

“We will never forget you, Balaam,” Marian said.

“You saved my life,” said Esther.

“You saved all of us,” added Marian. “You will always be our hero.”

“I’m going to name my kid after you, Balaam.” Herbert smiled and squeezed his neck one last time.

“Thank afor bean our friend,” Aaron said and wiped his face, trying his best not to show his tears in the moonlight. “I sory for a-callin’ ye’n stoopid.”

“You are forgiven. And I’ll never forget you, children,” said Balaam. “Well,” he straightened his back. “Better time than never to get started going nowhere.”

“Will we ever see you again?” Esther asked.

“I’m not sure,” Balaam replied. “But I suppose it has to happen if I really think about it.”

The children smiled and watched the Donkey disappear up the creek and into the forest. Once the trees stopped rustling and bending, and they knew he was far out of sight, they continued on their own way, slowly over the final hill and caught by a new wave of adrenaline for their beds and clean clothes. The moonlight disappeared behind the tall trees and they gathered close together. All was quiet, the trees were still, and nothing stirred. Fear would have gotten a hold of them if not for a familiar voice they heard in the darkness far behind and up the far hill. “Ugh, I always hated crossing mud,” came Balaam’s voice, and it made the children giggle.

“A-most theres,” said Aaron. “Sees that there piece a-soapstone—that the piece I’s a-pointed at on the ways in.”

***

When the forest-gate spread before them, and they stepped from the lush, green trees to open, fresh-cut grass, they had the odd sensation of stepping onto foreign land. For a half second, they thought houses were an absurdity and asphalt roads preposterous. But the wave of “normal” poured over them like a cup of lukewarm water; it felt nice to be home, safe to be back, but abhorrently uneventful.

They gathered under the tulip poplar and to their surprise a tree-house floor was braced up at the first branch, eight feet in the air. “I don’t remember that being there this morning,” Marian said, pointing.

Slam!

The back-porch door had opened and slapped shut, though it didn’t close properly because the latch was broken. Mrs. Dolor was standing in front of it, furious.

Starlight woke from the sound and blasted away into the night; it would have broken Herbert’s heart to not say goodbye under normal circumstances. But instead, he couldn’t look away from the stern, violent glare in his mother’s eye.

Aaron hollered his goodbye and ran to his bicycle perched on the nearest side of the house. He took off before any of the Dolor children said a word. The Dolors couldn’t take their eyes off their mother for their own safety.

“Where have you been!” She hollered in the sort of way adults do when they don’t want an answer, but just want you to know they are mad. “You’ve been gone all day…without a word! Oh my goodness! All of you! Filthy! Where have you been…Look at all your cuts and scrapes! Ugh! I’ve been worried sick and calling every place I could think of! Get inside!” She was quite upset, but her anger had more to do with fear than fury. She calmed down a bit once all three of her children were safe inside their home.

“Where did you go?” Mrs. Dolor asked again. All three children were bathed, dressed in pajamas, and sitting in the kitchen with her. Marian was seated on top of the table being examined by her mother, who ran iodine and cotton swabs over every cut and slice the trees, rocks, and Spearfinger had given her. (Of course, the children didn’t tell her anything about the hag or sea-serpent because that would only get them in more trouble.)

“We were playing in the woods behind our house,” Marian said.

Mrs. Dolor muttered something while applying another dab to Marian’s elbow.

Marian cringed. “I’m sorry, Mom. We lost track of time.”

“Who was that boy?”

“His name is Aaron,” Herbert butt-in. “He goes to school with us.”

“Aaron,” she repeated to herself, like she wanted to memorize it. “Is he a good boy?”

Marian, Esther and Herbert looked at each other, unsure for a moment how to answer.

“Yeah,” Marian said. “He’s our friend.”

“Well,” Mrs. Dolor said, “I’m glad you are making friends.” She poured a sizable amount of iodine down Marian’s leg, who clenched her teeth and winced. “You know your father was home all day,” said Mrs. Dolor, wiping it away. “He wanted to spend the day playing with you.”

“Oh,” Marian said.

“He spent the entire day starting a tree-house for you out back.” Mrs. Dolor had that look in her eye that all mothers know how to give. It’s that glance that makes you feel their disappointment even though they don’t have to say a word.

“I’m sorry,” the children said.

“Don’t say ‘sorry’ to me,” replied Mrs. Dolor.
Giant Obstacles

Giant Obstacles
Chapter 17

The Lake was the first sound they had heard from the other side of the sugar-berry; but they weren’t incorrect in their estimation of it sounding like someone was swimming. And this, too, was from where the booming thunderous earthquakes had come.

They were the pounding, stolid footsteps of a forty-five-foot-tall man who presently sat upright in the clover field, leaning one elbow on the top of a bent weeping-willow and dipping his free hand into the lake. Suddenly, the children realized the oblong-shaped pickle-puddles they had seen on their trip from the river were the sunken footprints of the giant.

From his terrible gaze and powerful stature, the children felt the pressure one feels next to someone of high importance and grandeur—not the sort of importance that comes with fame or wealth; but character and honor. They knew that he was a man of imperial significance and they would have been tempted to worship him, if they hadn’t innately perceived it would’ve insulted him rather than esteemed him. This pressure resulted in the hardest attempt to keep their eyes up and on him, yet ironically, each felt they mustn’t look away; it was as if they had lived underground for all their lives and finally walked into the sunshine, desiring to look upon the sun’s majesty and bask in its healing power, yet with every glance, brought under enormous pain from its sheer velocity.

The giant man’s skin was dark olive like an elk; his black hair was tied in a twelve-foot-long crimson ponytail behind his shoulders. He wore only a few strips of tanned leather around his waist and biceps; a necklace of enormous colorful rocks, shells, and stones hung across his bare chest. His free arm draped over his bent knee, and his furrowed brow stared at the children and Donkey whom had just arrived. Around him, the wild animals dawdled, and you had the impression that these black-bear never became aggressive and these deer never grew afraid.

The children were lost for a while in the wonder of the man and his lake. They couldn’t believe how difficult, long, arduous, and dangerous the journey had been, yet suddenly felt as if it were short and easy compared to what they had expected. Deep in their thoughts, they hadn’t realized the giant man was asking them something.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Marian. “What did you say?”

“Do you know me?” The giant asked again, and Marian felt the hot wind from his breath across the glade.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she replied, “but I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

Aaron and Herbert snickered and shook their heads in disbelief.

The giant leaned back like he was in deep thought. “Long time ago,” he sighed, “everyone knew Maushop.”

Marian stepped into the glade, and the others followed. As they crossed the tall ryegrass, the giant shifted his weight off the willow and lowered his head to examine the teeny children.

They felt his immense eyes rolling over each of them; his extended foot stood upright on its heel, in the middle of the field, seven-feet high. When they crossed under its shadow, Marian’s heart rose to her esophagus and she held her breath. Herbert remembered the last time he had smushed an ant and shivered at the thought. He felt a tug on his shirt and looked to see Starlight fluttering next to him. She was very perturbed and buzzing all about. He couldn’t help but imagine how she must look at him. To her, he was the giant. And this enormous man in the field was a skyscraper. And to the giant, Starlight was smaller than a gnat. “What is it, Starlight?”

The giant’s gaze fell on them like a tower with eyes. Splash! His right arm dumped into the lake, scooped up a handful of water, and splashed his face and ran it through his hair.

“Is that your name? Maushop?” Esther asked, sitting upright on Balaam’s back.

The giant nodded.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Maushop,” Marian added, and the others haphazardly agreed.

“I brought the fishes and the whales,” said Maushop. “And gave plenty to the little people. In the morning, they never worried about what they would do by nightfall, because Maushop provided.”

“Guys,” Herbert whispered. “I don’t think Starlight likes this guy very much.” Noya was bounding all around Herbert in a fitful stir, trying to compose herself but finding it very hard not to get angrier and angrier every second.

“Well, what happened to the little people?” asked Marian.

Maushop smiled and looked down at her. “What is your name, little princess?”

“Marian. Marian Dolor.”

“Dolors,” Maushop said to himself. The giant looked up into the mountain range behind them, and the kids wondered if they displeased him.

He looked back at the children. “If the gate is ever broken,” he said, “I protect that which cannot be destroyed.”

“Do you mean the Fountain?” Esther asked.

“Atagahi,” muttered Maushop.

Noya was at wit’s end. She could not contain herself any longer and burst away from Herbert’s shoulder. Her wings took her high into the air where she pulsated her red-orange light at the giant and pointed her finger sternly. The children heard the same buzzing cicada-like sound emanating from her that the Rock Faeries had uttered, and they imagined she was saying very choice words in her faerie language.

It’s been said that giants and fae-folk do not get along very well; something about the faeries’ preternatural love of color, wind and light irritates giants who prefer simple, elemental things like rocks, water, and dirt. Likewise, the fae-folk consider the slow meandering repose of giants as oafish. Nonetheless, giants and fae-folk alike can get along if needed; but what bothered Noya wasn’t brought on by her people’s prejudice, but that this field was once her home, and Maushop’s appearance was what drove her and her kin out of Atagahi.

“Gnats and houseflies,” Maushop swatted his hand at the air in front of him. “Get this thing away from me.”

“Starlight!” Herbert hollered, scared the giant might hurt or even kill her. The giant’s backhand swooped passed the faerie, and its wind blew her toppling head over heels. Her wings caught the air just before she crashed on the ground, and she feverishly retreated to Herbert’s side.

“Careful!” Herbert hollered, but he didn’t know if he was yelling at the faerie or the giant; either of which made him feel abashed for yelling.

“Ugly bright lights and nasty buzzing,” Maushop said to himself. “I miss the ocean.”

“The ocean?” Esther asked. “Is that where you are from?”

“Why ain’tcha head on back they?” Aaron smirked. “We-all can lak after the Founta’n.”

“Maushop lived far away from here, long ago,” said the giant. “I had a wife in the cold places by the ocean. And no—you cannot protect the Lake. Only the artifact can protect it.”

Esther leaned forward on Balaam’s back. She winced when her ankle hit the Donkey’s side. “Where is your wife now?” She asked, clenching her teeth in pain.

“You are in pain, little one,” said Maushop. “Come near to the waters and let them heal you.”

Esther hesitated. Up to this point, all they had wanted to do was reach the fountain on the word of David Crockett; but now, as she had the opportunity to step forward, she was reminded by the long terrible warnings Balaam had told them on their way through the Dead Valley.

She had images pop in her head of ghouls and spirits grabbing her ankle like the Spearfinger, and pulling her into the water, and filling her body with a bogey to haunt her family for the rest of her life.

What if whatever happened to all those Animals that left their homes and never saw their families again happened to her? What if it wasn’t a healing-lake at all, but instead a river like the Lethe, that would make her forget all her loved ones and send her to Hell?

But when she looked up and about; noticing the hopping rabbits, tumbling bear-cubs, and elegant does, her frightful thoughts began to disappear. How could something bad have so much beauty and joy wrapped around it? Esther slid off of Balaam’s back and hobbled on her foot toward the lake. The others, either from the look on Maushop’s face or something in the air, knew they were forbidden to help her unless the giant invited them to do so.

It was a terrifying thing to approach a giant, but Esther found the courage to do it in his sudden kind and gentle face. It took her several quiet minutes, and painful winces, to make it to the water’s edge. But as soon as her toe dipped under the water, and the powerful relief ran up her veins, she shoved the whole foot in, up to her calf. Her skin turned glossy and sleek, as if bathed in oil, and a scent filled the air like violets and shepherd’s purse.

“Oh!” Esther said.

“What’s is it?” Aaron hollered, concerned.

“It feels so cool—I mean, pleasant,” said she.

After only a moment, Esther’s leg felt better than it ever had. She pulled the foot from the water; the wound had vanished. It’s one thing to believe in miracles and another to see one happen. Even as the purple veins wiped away like smeared paint and the wound closed right in front of her like a clam shutting its mouth, she had no idea what to do or think.

She and the others rejoiced at the sight. Maushop smiled with them, yet in a serious, sovereign manner. Esther ran to her siblings and hugged both of them, Aaron, and especially Balaam around his fluffy neck for carrying her so far. She laid down in the grassy field, laughing and twisting her leg, and had a hard time concentrating on anything else for much of their time with Maushop.

After a few minutes of being caught in disbelief and realizing fully the power of this Lake, the children realized they didn’t know what do next, now that they had found the Fountain of Youth. They shuffled their feet awkwardly in the blowing grass and asked each other what they thought, while the giant quietly studied them.

“Why’d Crockett tell us a-come here to shet the gap, onliest find this here big-big giant?” Aaron whispered, letting a bit of his derision seep out. He looked at the giant man and felt his sobering stare wash over him again; he straightened his back and bowed his head.

“Balaam,” said Marian. “Do you know anything?”

“Marian,” replied Balaam. “I wish I knew more, but I only know what I’ve been given. David Crockett ordered me to walk with you. I never knew why.”

“He didn’t tell you what we were doing?” Herbert asked.

“Only that it mattered,” Balaam responded. “And I suppose that was good enough for me. But now that we are in Atagahi, I have many questions that have always befuddled me. One being, why are all these Animals here! I always heard it was a dead place. Mr. Maushop!” Here, he looked at the Giant. “Who are all of these Animals?”

“These that you see are those whom found Atagahi and would not leave it,” said Maushop. “They came to the Lake at the end of their life, and now worry of losing its power. They would rather wait here for the call to cross Atagahi; and thus, they avoid the call to return from it.”

“I heard nothing was across Atagahi,” replied Balaam. “What do you say is across it, then?”

“The Next Page,” replied Maushop. “These Animals do not yet fully understand that once one finds the Lake, the power of the Lake does not remain here. It goes forward with the Animal that returns to the place it came from. But they are not evil in this misunderstanding; only foolish. Even still, it is not such a bad thing to be foolish in paradise.”

“Maushop,” said Marian, finding her confidence behind Balaam’s questions. “We’ve come to find the Fountain of Youth. David Crockett sent us. He told us that we could close the gate if we came here.”

“I know, Dolor children,” he replied. “But I only move for the one who controls the Army of Bones.” The children glanced at one another, confused. “Maybe that’s you one day, but it’s not you today.”

“The Army of Bones? Balaam, do you know what that is?”

“Not a clue,” he replied.

“I don’t understand,”

“I does,” interjected Aaron. “Dagnabit! It mean this here whole stoopid trip—Esther bean begouged, Herbie about fells off a cliff, big ol’ sea-snakes, weaked cankered haints, and ashy faeries!—it were all pointless!”

Maushop’s eyes flared. “Do not despise the day of small things,” he boomed. “It is the Lord’s pleasure to see the work begin. And the little people will begin that work.” His eyes drifted heavenward in a sigh of sorrow. “My little people that are no more.”

“Maushop,” said Marian curiously. “What happened to them?”

“The Wendigo killed them,” he replied short and stern. “And my wife…” His voice trailed. He looked at the lake and submerged his hand under it again, taking a deep breath and restraining his anger; water billowed into the grassy lawn like a rapid. His other hand, forming a fist, raised into the air and fell to the earth beside them, violently; the forest shook, trees rattled, and the birds nearby took to the air, squawking and fleeing. He raised his hand from the earth, leaving behind a crater of rock and dirt. “I’m sorry,” he apologized and quiet sadness rolled over his eyes. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Dog me, we-all used to booger’s trine to keel us-alls by now,” Aaron sneered.

“Maushop,” Marian said, “I’m sorry about your wife—”

“Her name was Squannit,” said he.

“Squannit,” Marian repeated. “I’m sorry about Squannit.”

Maushop sighed.

“Hey,” Aaron interjected again. “We-all ‘llowed to sip from that there Fountain of Youth—er—Lake Atagahi or everwhat, and live forevers?” His cocksure attitude generated an angry reproach from Marian. “Whut?” He shrugged.

Maushop smirked at the boy. “Only those in death may enter the Lake.”

“Don’t that take the rag off the bush!” Sneered Aaron. “‘magine gettin’ ta Fountain of Youth, and not a-able to does nothin’ abouten it. We-all finds summen no abody else ever has, and we-all can’t even a-drink from it.”

“Everyone wants eternity,” Maushop said, “But they don’t want to die to receive it.” He raised his submerged hand from the water; a waterfall dumped from his palm and hairy arm. He was pointing.

Across the field was a mysterious rock formation. The group crossed the clover and blowing ryegrass to find a cairn of soapstone; a monument, clearly very old. Wind and rain had sapped the edges round. Herbert imagined even a simple nudge would collapse it.

At its center, a large flat stone revealed the outline of an eight-point star. Noya fluttered down to the shape and ran her little hands through its ridges and crevice. It seemed as though someone had ripped something from the stone much more recently, leaving the mark. Above the carved shape was the remains of a nearly-eroded inscription: “Leave your regrets here to regain life there.”

“What is it?” Esther asked.

“That is the grave of David Crockett,” Maushop called from the other end of the field, and a raven cawed from the tree line. “From it came the artifact. He who controls the artifact, controls the Army of Bones.”

“What does this all this mean?” Herbert asked.

“It means we failed,” said Marian harshly, and the others looked shocked that she was suddenly so despondent. She herself was a little taken aback by her deflated outburst. But all along the conversation with Maushop was a growing sense of failure and regret inside of her; she knew that she had made mistakes on the journey and seeing the glorious giant man seemed to remind her of it every moment.

“Whatever we did, we did it wrong. Maybe it’s because of the cave and Spearfinger. If we went the right way, maybe we would have found the artifact. Or maybe someone got here before us. But all I know is that nothing is happening. David Crockett isn’t here, Maushop won’t help, and whatever this artifact is—sigh—I don’t know.” She dropped her head.

Balaam nudged her with his head. “You have done more in your little life than others will before they are old and die. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Not everything works out how we wished, but at least we tried. And that is something not everyone can say they did.”

Marian smiled and hugged him, and Balaam felt tears on his mane.
A Rest on the Bank

A Rest on the Bank
Chapter 16

The group exited Merry Hollow somewhere southeast of where they first had entered; the forest continued in a crooked line southward, but Balaam wanted to avoid it at all cost, driving the kids along the hot, grassy downs instead. On the soft, heathery downs, and under the protective watch of Balaam, the children welcomed its warm embrace. Over the rolling downs, across knee-high fescue, crownbeard and sage; chickadees and warblers zipped on the wind; mockingbirds flit from the high grass; a rafter of turkey surveyed the hillside; and fourteen white-tail chased through the hilly dock.

Balaam told the children the Cherokee legends about Uktena, the serpent who fills men with honor upon his defeat; Spearfinger, who lures children away into the night; Tsul ‘Kalu, who searched for a bride to share his power; the Nunnehi who lived long ago, and how Weegan and the Nunnehibroke apart when the fate of the world was at stake.

As they went, the uneven ground tripped them often, but they welcomed the sensation of tumbling into sweet buttercup and clover; so much so that they started falling on purpose. This was the sweet part of the journey that all five remembered fondly. They chased each other and spun in circles, laughing at the glory of the mountain, dancing with the insects, cooing with the birds, and racing after rabbits; they found their mirth hidden in the downs.

Presently, the parallel forest turned southeastward and they saw a large body of water on the horizon. As they crested a large hill, they saw the water went on for a considerable distance southward. West of them, they made out the small indentation of Fool’s Pass between the mountains and recognized where they would have been if they had listened to Balaam at the cave entrance.

Balaam turned them southeast toward the southern tip of the lake. After an hour, they fell upon her; a broad, river basin, three miles across at it widest. Before them, and running the southern breadth, a meadow sprouted big, juicy yellow marigolds up to the water’s edge and into the first few inches of its chilly, clear water, before subsiding under small loose pebbles. The water was still as ice and clear as glass; a stone could be seen falling to her center at one-hundred-fifty feet below; sunshine bounced off its mirror-edge and lit the grassy downs on yellow-golden fire. At the southern most tip of the lake, the basin narrowed into a thin rushing river. It was here that Balaam guided them.

The river mouth was only a few feet across, but before attempting the crossing, the party stopped at the lake’s edge; much to their delight. The three helped Esther off of Balaam’s back and placed her in the shallows on a pebbled bank. She carefully removed the tourniquet and let the water clean out the wound. The cold water stung, but its wonderful, chilly embrace numbed the pain.

The rest of the party, disgusting and stained by the hot hollow and hag’s fight, waded out into a deeper part of the lake and submerged themselves, scrubbing and shuffling about to get the clean water in every nook and cranny. Its icy touch soothed their faces, arms, legs, and aching feet; they floated on their backs and laughed at the sky.

With the right sunlight on the lake, the eye could see underwater for hundreds of feet in every direction, even to its cavernous bottom. Bluegills and bream skirted through bladderworts and pondweed. Rainbow trout and brookies hovered, nearly motionless, along the river outlet, sifting rocks and waiting for an insect to hit the water. Fat bass and cats surveyed the roots and algae for easy prey. Common snapping turtles and sliders skated the current like fighter pilots, spinning and turning on a dime. One hundred geese dive-bombed into the water, snatching up bream, and daintily drifting along the bay, while mallards patrolled the bank for minnows and shiners.

Esther leaned forward in the shallow water and stuck her face into the world below; the yellow marigolds stretched far and wide into the water and surrounded her hands and face in bright yellow beauty. She plucked one wading underneath the water and brought it to the surface. The thing smelled extraordinary, like she was in a nursery surrounded by thousands of flowers.

After a long bath, Herbert squatted on the bank, between a grove of cattails and arrowheads, where he had let his faerie-friend rest. She was awake now, dusting off her delicate, translucent wings. Herbert sat on a large stone and held out his palm for her to climb onto. She shimmered in the sunlight, unfolding and stretching her wings in its hot rays, before fluttering them like a dragonfly. The pocket hadn’t been the most comfortable place to rest, but it did the job.

“My name is Herbert,” he said.

The green faerie Noya wasn’t able to speak for humans to hear, but she seemed to understand him fine. She bowed and smiled at him.

“We’ve traveled far while you rested,” said Herbert. “We aren’t anywhere near the cave now. Do you have a home or family waiting for you?”

The faerie frowned and shook her head; she spread her delicate arms wide over her, making a big oval. Then she tapped her toe and wagged her finger like a schoolteacher. She outstretched her palms and shrugged.

“Well, until you find them, you can stay with me,” Herbert offered. “I’ll look after you since you looked after us.”

The green faerie smiled and fluttered to his shoulder. Unbeknownst to Herbert, Laurel’s are the sweetest, albeit mischievous, of the fae-folk; and they will stop at nothing to make sure young people are safe and protected. So, staying with the Dolor party was ideal for her. She nudged her wavy, red hair between the crook in his neck and leaned against him. The two dallied in the sunshine, watching Balaam swim, Marian play in the pebbles, Esther laying in the marigolds, and Aaron searching for salamanders. Herbert told Noya all about their hope to find Atagahi and their journey so far; how the storm had almost swept him off the mountain pass; Spearfinger almost kidnapped Esther in Merry-Hollow; and the Uktena’s cave that she had saved them from. She smiled and loved every moment of the little boy’s retelling.

“Starlight,” Herbert said. “I’ll call you Starlight.”

The faerie smiled and closed her eyes, content.

Like a beehive’s symphony, a buzzing and whirring sound slowly stirred from a murmur to a dreary drone across the lake. The bathing group heard the soft vibration on the wind and looked about for the cause, but it wasn’t until Esther noticed the black floating specks over the water that they realized the sound was coming from them.

Noya was instantly alert, recognizing the sound. She dropped off Herbert’s shoulder and feverishly began collecting sticks, mud, and slices of hay from the earth. In a frantic few seconds, she had concocted a make-shift bow out of the items and an arrow was on the string with an arrowhead tip made from a small slice of slate.

She flew to Herbert’s shoulder and from there, aimed the bow outward, ready and ferocious. He was impressed and confused by her actions. As she twisted her body back and forth, he saw what she was aiming at.

Over the wide, vibrant lake, the specks of black were slowly taking shape; they were fae-folk like Noya, but very different from her. Their wings were dull, brown and creamy; they wore short, tight grass clothing over their maroon skin; their hair was long, straight and dark and their eyes golden and red. And as they approached, their appearance grew menacing rather than welcoming. The dizzying, dazzling armada swept upward over the bay and circled around the children. In a few seconds each of the Dolor party had six male and female faeries surrounding them, armed with blow-darts and slingshots.

The bizarre arrangement gave the children an instinctual comical response, seeing such delicate, fine creatures fearsome and armed to the teeth. But their reaction deflated appropriately at the look of these creatures’ eyes; they were not sweet, fine, or delicate—they were warriors and quite angry.

The foremost fae-folk bade some sort of military salute, but neither the children nor Balaam understood. When they failed to respond, the armada braced themselves in unison and pulled their weapons congruently.

Abruptly, Noya dropped her bow and took to the air above, holding her delicate, green hands up and shining her orange translucent wings brightly. Recognizing Marian as leader of the group, she was waiting respectfully for her to respond to the faeries. But when Marian had failed to understand the Rock Clan’s war-welcome, she knew she must intervene or watch the children be slaughtered.

Noya, fluttering in the air, bowed her head and twisted her wrist like a French Captain’s parley. By her red hair and rosy cheeks, the Rock faeries recognized her as a Laurel and one they had driven out of their lands only a fortnight ago. The faeries went back in forth in their unknown language above the gaping group. To the children it sounded like cicadas and chickadees singing in the sunshine, but the song came fast, exclamatory, and violent.

Noya, or Starlight as Herbert called her, seemed to be apologizing for their intrusion and explaining their need to find Atagahi. After only mere seconds of spastic dialogue, the angry maroon-skinned faeries seemed to acquiesce and disarmed their weapons.

“Yunwi Tsunsdi”, muttered Balaam aside to the children. “They are usually kind like your Laurel friend, here. But not all are so playful, as you can see. Best be moving on.”

“Where do we go, now?” Marian asked, squeezing her hair free of fresh, clean water.

“We are going to the Fountain of Youth.” Balaam declared, and caught Marian’s smirk.

“Is it much longer then?” She asked.

“Time is a hard thing to determine when you are complaining and going the wrong way,” Balaam responded. “And I should know, I have one of you sitting on my back for the rest of the way—and you best be sure whatever direction we go, I’ll be annoyed.” He turned his long face and winked at Esther. “But I think if we have found the fae-folk, then the end should be near.”

“Esther—” Marian began, looking at her sister’s damaged leg, and doubting again the decision to keep moving forward. The cut looked hideous and infected.

“—Marian,” Esther interrupted her sister’s thoughts. “I’m okay. And I forgive you. So forgive yourself, and let’s get going.”

In all honesty, Esther wasn’t doing too good. After the other three helped back onto the Donkey, she examined her foot; the bleeding had stopped, but the veins on her calf shone through her skin, purple and splayed upward like spiderwebs. It stung when she glanced at it, so she pulled the tourniquet tighter and told herself not to look; nevertheless, her stomach felt weak, and her deep thoughts continued to frighten her.

Picking up their belongings, the group made for the river crossing. The Rock faeries hovered stationary at the bay until long after the party was out of sight. They found the River Pactolus was much deeper than Weeper’s Run, but not as wide or turbulent. They had the idea of throwing their shoes and Marian’s backpack across the river so as to keep them dry; and as soon as they did, they had the terrible realization that many travelers similarly find themselves in; that now, there was no turning back. They must cross the Pactolus if for no other reason than to rescue their belongings.

Balaam dropped into the river and it came up to Esther’s waist. The others dove in and came out about twenty-feet south of where they had entered. They traipsed up the rocky bay and found their tossed shoes and effects in the disheveled moss. Pulling dirty socks over wet skin is never pleasant, and they soon discovered makes for a terrible hike.

On this side of the lake, the meadow was stark and bland; gray and brown. There were few trees and fewer green grass; much of the earth had been torn up and thrown about, revealing dark, red clay and long, thick rows of dirt like unwieldy crops. Esther lay her head on Balaam’s mane and closed her eyes, listening to the cackle of distant woodpeckers and swifts and the buzzing flies under Balaam’s nose. She missed running ahead and finding the next part of the path, but the calm repetition of Balaam’s lifting and dipping back lulled her. It reminded her of riding on her father’s shoulders when she was smaller. He would gallop around the living-room and make her feel like a real cowgirl. She never imagined herself one day riding a Donkey through an enchanted forest. She opened her eyes when she felt Balaam suddenly stop.

The group was still on the bank, yet much farther north of the Pactolus crossing; now, they could only see the thick foresting trees of Merry Hollow on the far side. The group had stopped after noticing the remains of an enormous mudslide smeared across the earth; it traveled through the valley until meeting the tree-line five hundred yards east. From the shoreline, they could see the forest open into a wide path; trees, ripped up by the roots, were left to the sides in broken, smashed rubble, like an upended highway of felled maples, walnuts, and oaks. The path carried on past the horizon; it told them the story of something clearly monstrous coming from the water and ripping the forest to shreds.

With steely glares and clenched teeth they followed Balaam as he turned east and followed the path across the valley; he seemed tense to them and explained that animals usually never crossed the Pactolus unless under extreme conditions.

They called it the Dead Valley, because only the dying came here as a last resort. Some deer that had been hit with an arrow, or a skunk that had been struck by an automobile, or perhaps a bear that had been shot. And afterward, none came out of the Valleyquite the same. When the children pressed him about it, he explained that those who returned from the Dead Valley wouldn’t look at you the same way anymore; their eyes glinted, they walked slower, and their cheeks always upturned. You’d think it was a nice sight, but how would you feel if you thought your mother or brother was going insane and couldn’t talk to you, look at you, or love you the same way anymore.

And what’s worse, most of the animals who had returned would eventually leave their dens and hollows, somehow, yet mysteriously, finding one another. Most lived isolated in a sort of coven on the far side of the Southern Marsh. The other Animals created rumors that those who had returned were possessed by a foreign spirit—the spirit of Atagahi—and were no longer the same Animal.

If you were to ask a friend or relative who had visited Atagahi what it is like across the Dead Valley, they would reply, “What was it like!” And their eyes would shimmer at the sun and you could never get a straight answer out of them. They would start describing colors or wings, but nothing sensical.

And yet no matter how dangerous, off-putting, or mysterious it all seemed, any animal that was about to face death would gladly take it over the alternative. Those who could make the journey would make their way to the crossing of the Pactolus—and all the other Animals recognized that distinct look in the eye of the dying; they knew they were going to the Dead Valley. Those making the trip would cross the Pactolus and crawl across it to find whatever it was they were hoping for. But no healthy animal would dare cross the Dead Valley without being deemed a fool or a devil.

“I guess that makes me pretty much a fool, then,” said Balaam. “But people have been calling me that all my life. So I may as well cross the Dead Valley and see what all the fuss is about anyway.” Regardless of his mettle, the children saw he was visibly shaken with each of his heavy hoof-steps.

The sun was yawning behind them. It cast a crimson sky that met the pale blue overhead, and a bald eagle hovered a mile and a half above.

They followed the wet, upturned landscape and noted strange shapes inside of the muddy trail, filled with water. There was a large pickle-shaped puddle, nearly three-feet wide. Just beyond it, there were four four-inch oval-puddles beside a seven-inch oval-puddle. Altogether they gave the impression of a watery, frowning clown with five eyeballs. The shape repeated itself down the trail on the opposite side, and then back again on the initial side. The trail was littered with the oval and oblong pickle-puddles. They seemed familiar to the children, but they could not place where they had seen this strange indentation.

Eventually, the group came upon the tree-line and stopped in its sheer magnificent awe. What they had seen from the shoreline, had not prepared them for the apparent, yet unbelievable, power necessary to open such a highway of trees.

The forest had been cleared into a glen by an unimaginable, massive force; trees and bushes lay everywhere, uprooted and thrown to the side; wide, round root-balls, four times as high as all of them, lay on their sides, stretching their gangling fingers into the sky. Their trees were felled in the forest with hundreds of others, leaving the woods ravaged. Birds perched in nearby silence, and they were the only living thing in sight, besides the scurrying insect or squirming worm.

On the children ventured, under the waning sun, gangling arms of red cedar, high creamy glances of trees-of-heaven, and long narrow shadows of poplar. They traveled for nearly an hour through the forest, their path carved out by whatever monstrous thing came before them, until they approached a full-grown sugar-berry that had been pulled from its roots and left in the middle of the glen.

The group looked it over, trying to find a way around large enough for Esther to cross on Balaam’s back, when they heard a sound like splashing water that shook the ground. If it weren’t for the mild-earthquakes, the children would have thought someone was swimming.

The group found an opening under a snapped branch laying against a large boulder it had fallen on. Aaron ducked underneath and held the smaller branches out of the way for Balaam and Esther to pass beneath. The rest followed after and gathered on the far side of the sugar-berry. They stood together and immediately held hands, stopping again to stare in awe.

The mountains billowed in blue, foggy brilliance, rolling down the horizon into green, blundering hills broken up by silver, jagged ridges and white, cascading falls. Here, the forest had naturally cleared into a glade, lined by ash trees, water oaks, and pines, and filled with crimson clover, blowing ryegrass, hopping rabbits, dancing elk and deer, bumbling bears, flitting honeybees, scampering groundhogs, and thousands of waterfowl.

On the far side of the glade, a freshwater spring boiled into a purple lake. Along its shore were rock statues of men, women, unicorns, pegasi, faeries, piasi, urayuli, bakwas, and pukwudgies.

At the front, a spout spurt the spring water into a small fountain that dribbled and trickled all over a silver dish and back into the amethyst lake. Sparrows bathed in the sprinkling water and fluttered about, joyfully. The children had found it; there was no denying it. Atagahi, the Fountain of Youth, sparkled before them. Each of them, in their own way, felt wonderful satisfaction for having made the journey. The problem was, they weren’t alone.
Spearfinger

Spearfinger
Chapter 15

The blistering, afternoon light pierced like a ray through a water glass, straight, strong, and unyielding; it hurt to be in its terrible stare, and the children stumbled to the ground, blinking and unorthodox. They lay on the eastern slope of a grassy knoll outside the cave outlet, and welcomed the soft touch of fescue on their wet, sore bodies. Sudden relief following sudden horror can ofttimes dispel all other thoughts, desires, and realities; when we go through hell and make it to the other side, we forget we have duties, faraway friends, and family; we finally comprehend very little in life matters except being with those we love and enjoying the breath in our lungs. This was no different for the children, who found themselves in sudden hysterics, laughing and leaping. Before long, they were singing and rolling down the hillside; its warm grass dried their clothes, and the sunshine lifted their spirits.

After several frolicking minutes, the hilarity faded, and their somber task came back to each one-by-one, as well as the sobering notion that they were very lost in a wild and unfamiliar forest. They gazed down the slope in hopes of finding some sense of direction. The crystal river had exited the cave outlet into a creek, running east, before veering southeast and disappearing into a distant hillside. To the south, their knoll plummeted into a sharp canyon cradled between it and another steep mountain. Heading northeast, the pasture rolled on for five-hundred yards, filled with bounding squirrels and hopping rabbits, buzzing bees and jumping grasshoppers, until it met a dark, blue hollow. Several miles away, on the far side of the hollow, they saw the dim crescent mark of a river running from the north; and further northeast of it they could just perceive the hazy outline of a village. And all the while they gazed about, behind them, at the westernmost point of the knoll, where it met the mountain and tree line, a pair of eyes studied the children.

“Where do we go now?” Herbert asked, glancing at the sleeping faerie in his patch pocket.

“I don’t know,” Marian replied. She met her sister’s eyes, wincing and fumbling through her words. “Esther…nothing. Never mind.” Deep down, she felt very foolish and embarrassed with herself for listening to the Top-Hat Man, but she didn’t know how to express it without feeling unworthy of leading her brother and sister any further. She made up in her mind that as soon as they were out of the forest she would apologize.

“Look lak a town acrost there,” said Aaron, pointing across the hollow. “Maybe there abody who can hep us.”

“A town?” Esther pondered aloud.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Marian added. “But I think Aaron is right. It is probably our best bet.”

“Well, let’s get moving,” added Herbert. “I feel like someone is watching us.”

“I had the same sensation, Herbert,” said Marian.

The children began their journey again down the northeast slope, chasing the skipping rabbits and startling the fluttering butterflies, until the fine grassy pasture gave way to a stark hollow of deep, tight oaks. As they entered, the rabbits disappeared into their warren dens on the western slopes, and the sunshine clouded into gray, somber light. The forest trees had interwoven their limbs to form a strange interlocked canopy; underneath, it gave the impression of an endless, crocheted blanket or wooden spiderweb. The tight limbs corralled and blocked the sunshine completely out.

The children had become lost under an ocean of darkness, amber and green. Their sense of east and west disappeared near instantaneously, leaving them tense and argumentative. Aaron knew a bit of scout-training from his Paw-Paw to remember to aim three trees in succession and walk from spot to spot in a perfect line; but after only a few minutes, the children felt like they were in the caverns all over again. The hollow was a trap for their senses, and each bleakly felt the sting of shame for allowing such a simple thing to happen to them again. They had traded the dripping stalactites for creeping branches, and shadowy pillars for monstrous trees; only now, spiderwebs stuck to them with every step.

The trees disappeared behind menagerie of limbs, vines, and ivy; nothing was unique and any notion of turning back was lost. Dusky and damp, like wet, soggy blankets; sweat building up, mildew and muskrats. Spiderwebs in faces, clinging to soft, wet limbs; creeping and crawling, tickling down their necks; smacking and shivering, holes they caught falling; bruising and festering, cuts grown appalling. Mushrooms and moss, carefully tossed; tree limbs and chattering, a wonder of what’s pattering. Up and down through thicket and hill, crooked roots and broken untilled. Nonsense and no sense, lost hope in their souls; a coyote scared clambering, down into its hole. Ravens cawed to crows’ note; a soft and helpless, empty repose; the forest horrifically silent like a shouting mime; it clawed at the face with no reason or rhyme. Tap, tap, tap came dripping off the leaves; slosh, slosh, slosh was the mud up to knees. Creeping and crawling like a terrible game; the children without notion of why they came.

“From the frine pan to the far,” whispered Aaron.

“What?” Herbert asked.

“Jist summen my pa used to says.”

“The only thing missing is that terrible song we heard in the caves,” added Marian.

“I thought I’s the onliest one to hears it!” Aaron shouted. “You-all kep goin lak you -all dudn’t heared it. Tacking abouten nonsense louder than a mule in a tin barn.” The children giggled together; it was the sort of soft, gentle laugh that comforts the privately afraid.

Fog rolled along the ground and covered their feet; the air was dense and opaque. They tried to keep the talk between themselves care-free and off any subject of the forest; things like Mr. Oulette’s round, funny glasses, Vinnie’s squeaky voice, and the worst kind of lunch food, “turkey-slop”. It helped to snicker and remember their lives outside of the deep, enchanted forest; yet each child was growing more and more disquieted as the path darkened, the fog thickened, and the way seemed unclear. They were good and lost, but none wanted to admit it. Over their scant giggling was a soft, silky noise like singing laughter, yet menacing and haunting.

“Uwe la na tsiku. Su sa sai,” the very near voice chimed.

“No,” whispered Marian. “I thought we left it behind in the caverns.”

“What is it?” Esther mused.

“I knew something was watching us on the hill,” said Herbert.

“Herbert,” Marian whispered. “Do you still have your pocketknife?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Good. We might need it.”

The group had stopped walking, and their eyes followed Marian’s sweeping pointed arm; and one by one, they fixed on the same spot in the shadowy underbrush. Between the spindly conifers of two red cedars, an elderly man rested on a rock; his short white hair, long plaid slacks, and blue USN tattoo were as recognizable as their own faces. Mr. Mewbourn.

“Paw-Paw?” Aaron whispered. He stepped toward the man, but Marian grabbed his arm.

“Wait,” she whispered.

Mr. Mewbourn smiled at the children and waved his hand in the air, inviting them to come closer.

Marian shook her head at Aaron and asked the elderly man sternly, “Who are you?”

The old man’s smile faded into a devilish smirk; his mouth opened but the voice did not match his appearance. It was not rough and warm like Mr. Mewbourn; but soft, smooth and sweet like honey.

“Uwe la na tsiku,” the voice whispered. “Su sa sai. Liver, I eat it. Su sa sai.”

The children felt lightheaded, like waking from a long dream, and before they really comprehended what was said, the man had slunk behind the cedars and disappeared into the underbrush; the fog rolled over his escape and a raven cawed in the canopy above.

“Great,” Marian whispered, and felt Herbert shaking next to her.

“Arybody, RUN!” shouted Aaron.

The children huddled together and ran in a broken line up a slope through the dense wood. Cedar limbs slapped across their faces and scratched their cheeks until the sunlight broke through on the top of a ridge and they could see clearly the world around them.

“There!” Marian exclaimed and the four children climbed down to the opposite end of a stone embankment, where a rocky shelf hid them from three sides, above, left and right. It was as good of a hiding place as they could have hoped for. Below, the ground melted away into a steep cliff covered in fallen leaves and slick moss. The children gathered tight together and listened intently, holding their breath and waiting to see if the strange figure had followed them.

Soon, they heard the rustle of leaves and a stuttered breathing from beside them on the path they had raced up. Whatever it was no longer sounded like the sweet, honey voice; now it was haggard, bitter, and sharp like an old woman. They knew it must be just beyond the cliff-face. Again, Marian felt the shame of having taken her siblings this way and wished to God that Balaam was still with them.

A noise like rumbling rocks shuffled in the bushes above, then a branch shuddered somewhere far away, and they perceived the thing must have kept following the path away from them.

“Huddle close, everyone,” Marian directed, just above a whisper.

Herbert clutched his knife in hand. Aaron clenched his fists.

“We need to wait here for as long as we can before going back out there. And hopefully, we can make it to the other side of the wood soon.”

“Which way do we go?” Esther pleaded. “Do you think we can go back to the prairie?”

“Whar bouten that village?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Marian, at a loss for words.

From beneath the rocky shelf under them, a long, dainty spear appeared behind Esther; it moved along the ground as smooth and effortless as a serpent until it was at her ankle. In the next moment, Esther’s face slammed into the rock floor and her body was dragged off the embankment, down the steep cliff.

“Esther!” The children screamed, and without second-guessing it, all leapt off the rock embankment and slid down the cliff after her flailing body.

The buzzing in Esther’s ears made the world turn yellow, white, and cloudy. It felt like she was floating in watery pain, until her senses returned and she shrieked in agony over her bleeding head and sore leg. A stiff hand was clasped around her ankle and yanking her body down the slope until she reached the bottom and was pulled into a bush.

Aaron was leaping ahead of the others and tumbling down the forest slope. He wrestled through a thicket of rhododendron, tangled up and out of breath, and saw Esther lying helpless under her attacker. He dove forward to tackle the thing as Marian and Herbert tumbled the rest of the way and emerged beside their sister.

Now the children saw the shapeshifter for what it really was; a hag, or wood-witch, with wispy, gray hair dangly across her sunken eyes; a short, emaciated figure, and one twelve-inch spear on her right hand where the forefinger should have been. Esther’s ankle was in the hag’s right clenched fist.

Aaron charged the hag like a linebacker, grabbing hold of it with both arms and hitting it in a fitful rage. The creature shoved Aaron with its left hand, caught him off-balance, and sent him flailing into the forest.

Esther was screaming, fighting, biting, and punching, but the stone-hand would not release her and the long spear lunged forward at her face. Marian took Esther’s hands and pulled to no avail, while Herbert jabbed at the witch with his short pocket knife; first, he attempted cutting the hag’s arm and freeing his sister, but the knife glanced off of it like a sharpening stone. He was so confounded by the hard skin, and overcome by the violent mission to cut the thing off of his sister that he felt no remorse or sense of common-decency; he aimed for what he thought would be the softest parts—the underbelly, the armpits, the neck—but like the wrist, the knife merely pinged off the skin.

Aaron was back, jumping on top of the witch and flopping around as it twisted and turned underneath him. He punched at her head, bruising and bloodying his hands as he went. In the scuffle, he was never sure if he was helping in any sort of positive way, and after several kicks, punches, and cuffs, he had lost so much awareness that he may have been hitting Herbert or Esther instead of the wood-witch. He tried pulling at the thing’s gray, thin hair, to distract it from holding on to Esther’s ankle but nothing could relinquish the monster’s grip or determination. All the while the spear lunged about, with Esther’s leg flopping this way and that in its grasp, nearly missing Aaron and Herbert’s faces and chests.

Finally, the hag’s hand twisted open, but only to cut Esther. The spear had dug in to Esther’s flesh, just above the ankle and under the calf; it ripped and sliced the tendon to shreds.

Herbert, still clutching hold of the fist and trying to pull the rest of it free, felt a soft, fleshy part of the creature’s palm and jabbed his knife into the deformed hand. Crimson blood spurt and spat out of the back of the knife, and the spear slid out of Esther’s ankle.

The hag screamed and cursed like a banshee. “Su sa sai!”

The forest erupted—birds, foxes, groundhogs, squirrels, skunks, and deer fled in every direction leaving behind an avalanche of sound.

Aaron kicked the hag’s chest in. Surprisingly, it flew back, fell to one knee, and nursed its bloody hand for a moment, screaming and writhing in pain like a deformed fish on land.

Guessing the creature was nearing the end of its resolve, Aaron stepped forward and shouted, hoping to scare it away. But the creature’s wherewithal was not spent. It leapt up and struck him in the chest with its stony fist, and Aaron tossed through the wood, over Herbert and Marian’s heads, into a coiled rhododendron.

Marian and Herbert helped their sister to her feet. Esther screamed in agony when her foot touched the ground. Putting their arms under her shoulders, the brother and sister counted her weight, trying to help her flee. But the ugly, menacing creature stood in their way, staring from its deep set, invisible eyes between its thin, gray hair. The thing’s chest rose and fell under frantic breathing.

Herbert leaned Esther onto Marian and stepped forward into the foggy, scuffled path between the hag and his sisters. His pocket knife shook fitfully in his gripped fist, dropping blood off itself like a centrifuge.

“I won’t let you hurt them,” said Herbert, quaking.

Aaron flailed about in the rhododendron, trying to stand, before tripping and falling back into its web and tying himself up even tighter. “I’m ‘onna fry ya lak a squ’rrel, you nast haint!” He cried.

Herbert made a quick glance to see his sisters retreating. Good, they were still trying to get away. Now it was up to him to keep this thing away from them for as long as possible. He knew he wouldn’t be able to win. But victory itself would be saving his sisters.

He faced the creature. It hunched low to the ground, rocked itself back and forth, and sang, as if a lullaby, mocking him as it stepped forward with its long spearfinger held out. Herbert clenched his jaw, barred his teeth, furrowed his brow, and prepared himself as all men do, young or old, when they face what must be death or victory for the safety of those whom they love. He took a long breath, set his foot behind himself and charged with the knife.

An earth-shattering roar thundered from the dense forest, on the far side of the hag. “Hee-Haw!”

Instantly, the hag cut her song short; with a very obvious tinge of fear and surprise. It spun round in confusion; but it was too late. A wild, white and brown Donkey with blue-grey stripes erupted from the darkness and rammed its thick head into the side of the hag, throwing her to the ground.

The witch slid across the leafy, forest floor into a low, jutting branch that impaled its right palm, just where Herbert had stabbed it before. An ear-splitting screech echoed from it again, and blood gushed from its hand. The Donkey charged, whirled on its front legs, and pounded its rear hooves into the hag’s face. Blood spat out of the empty eyes and the hag dropped to the ground dead.

All four children cheered, “Balaam!” “You came back!” “Ye’n saved us!” “Our hero!” In exhaustion and sudden panicked relief, they fell to the ground and stared at their savior.

“Faithful ol’ Donkey,” Aaron cried, tripping on his face again as he pulled himself from the rhododendron. “Couldn’t’ve done withoutchya!”

Balaam trotted to the children, imitating boredom, but indeed, very happy to see the children. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to look after you bunch of delinquents again.”

Herbert closed his knife, thankful he didn’t have to use it again, and ran to Esther’s aid. She winced in pain and reached for a tree branch to take the weight off of her injury. Blood had gushed down her ankle and soaked her sock and shoe; flies and gnats were already gathering at the blood and chewing on the flayed skin.

Staring at the hideous hag remains in the weeds, she gasped, “What is that thing?”

“Boy, that there weaked haint made me loose as a goose!” shouted Aaron.

“Her name is Utlunta,” answered Balaam. “A lot of animals in the forest call her Spearfinger. And you, Mr. Herbert, are very lucky to have stabbed her in the palm, because the legend says that is the only way to kill her. All I did was finish her off for you.”

“Iffen she can’t die ‘cept thattaway, how y’all knowed itta kill ‘er?” Aaron asked, staring confused and disgusted. “That mean summen kill this here thang afore?”

“I don’t know,” answered Balaam. “Come children. Let’s look at the little Esther and get out of the Merry-Hollow as soon as we can; it isn’t safe.”

“Shoot!” Aaron exclaimed “Quicker’n you can scat a cat!”

Aaron tied a tourniquet, made from his jacket sleeve and doused with a water-bottle, around Esther’s ankle. Balaam muttered that he did not like the look of it and seemed to be very concerned by the Spearfinger cutting into her veins. But then, after seeing the children’s expressions, changed his manner, shook his big droopy face, and smiled at them, telling Esther everything would be alright. “But you won’t be able to journey much with a foot like that,” added he. “Looks like you’ll need me even more now than ever.”

“I’m so sorry, Balaam,” apologized Marian.

“We-all is,” Aaron agreed.

“We should have listened and—” Marian paused. She still felt the same feeling as before; a desire to confess and apologize, but outweighed by what the others might think of her.

“It’s okay,” Balaam reassured them. “I’m back.”

The children wrapped their arms around him (except Esther, who was sitting on the ground again). They never felt so glad to have someone back in their lives.

Marian burst into tears on his shoulder. Hearing Balaam so sweetly forgive them after they had been so terrible to him wiped away all the fear of what others thought of her.

“It’s not ‘okay’ though,” said she. “I’m sorry, everyone. I shouldn’t have led us this way. I shouldn’t have taken us into the caverns, either. I was wrong to listen to the Top-Hat Man. And I have done terrible.”

The others held her in their arms.

Esther reached her hand out to touch her leg. “We forgive you,” she said, wincing.

“And now you are hurt.” Marian frowned. “I wish—Oh, what was I thinking!”

“You may have all been hurt going the other way, too,” said Balaam. “No use wishing for something that never was.”

“Balaam,” said Marian, with tears in her eyes. “You are an amazing friend.”

Balaam blushed and smirked.

“I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I think I get it, though,” Esther replied, while pulling a stick out of her left pig-tail. “And I wonder if it’s all because of the Top-Hat Man. Inside I felt yucky, too. Like—I started doubting you. And getting angry. I couldn’t get out of my head what Mr. Dauer said to me. I’m sorry, Marian.”

Aaron stooped low and lifted Esther up; she cried in pain when the ankle twisted on itself. He and Marian helped her up to Balaam’s back. She lay down and nearly fainted, exhausted from the pain, and hugged the Donkey’s fluffy neck.

“I reckon it broked,” Aaron whispered to Marian. “What ye’ns wanna do?”

“What can we do?” Marian muttered.

“Goin back-back?”

Marian thought for a long time about the question. On the one hand, going back made a lot of sense; but on the other, she doubted what kind of home she would be returning to.

“How can we after all we’ve been through?” Marian asked. “I want Esther safe. But we need my dad better if he is going to help us at all. And that means getting to whatever end of this there is.”

“Well, isn’t this great!” Balaam exclaimed snidely, looking back at Esther on his back. “Now I’ve got to traipse through haunted Merry-Hollow and carry a lame duck on my back, back to the Fool’s Pass.”

Esther smiled sheepishly and whispered in his ear, “I think you are perfect.”

“Whar these here places y’en keep tackin’ bout?” Aaron asked. “Merr’ Hollow, Fool Pass. We-all thoughts we sees a town all the farther. That’s whar we-all headed.”

“Eh? Oh, that’s Newton. You wouldn’t want to go there. Don’t you know any of the whereabouts this forest contains? No, alright then. Merry-Hollow runs west from the Pactolus, all the way to Dark Canyon. That’s where the Spearfinger likes to traverse. She had been following us since we passed over the Canyon in the rain, when the mudslide almost took Mr. Herbert out. It’s why I wanted to keep us moving. I knew where we were when at the crossroads, but I hesitated at the caverns, because I thought she may be hiding in Fool’s Pass for us.”

“That’s the way we should have went, then,” Marian surmised.

“Why din’t ye’n tell us bout them ashy snake in the cave, er ain’t tell us not to listen to the Top-Hat Man?” Aaron asked irritably.

“What use is it arguing with someone whose already made up their mind?” Balaam answered matter-of-factly. “I was hoping I would find you when you came out of the cave, but I got lost on the downs. I’m not used to looking for Uktena’s Mouth. That’s where the river drops out of the cave; I was just coming over the down when you all raced off into Merry-Hollow. It’s like you were searching for trouble.”

Aaron sneered. “Whale, I on’t put it apast ya. What-all’s next?” he asked.

“We need to head back south, near Fool’s Pass and then east from there toward the Pactolus. The sooner we get out of Merry-Hollow, the better. Spearfinger wasn’t the only thing evil in here.”

The children looked back at the hag’s corpse and shuddered one last time, realizing they had very nearly escaped death twice, and only from the sudden appearance of a rescuing friend. They weren’t doing very well on their own, and made a collective decision to listen to and fully trust Balaam henceforth.

“Should we bury it?” Marian asked, looking at Spearfinger.

“Uh—no. I don’t think that would be good,” answered Balaam awkwardly. He trotted to the corpse and jammed his hoof into its right hand breaking the spear from the digit. “I think we best just leave it here.”

“Whale,” Aaron sighed. “Ain’t no better time’n never to get goin nowhere—a-right, Balaam?”

Balaam grinned. “That’s the miserable kind of junk I’ve been trying to teach you children all along. It’s about time you listened.”

Marian sighed and shook her head at the sight of Esther’s leg again. She tightened her backpack straps, and stepped behind Balaam as he trotted along an invisible path out of the wood. The boys followed closely behind her, while the Donkey turned south in to the oak trees and creeping ivy. Esther held on to his strong neck hair as he wound through the brush. Soon the cool, smoky fog lifted away, and they saw the sunshine peak through the end of the wood again.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel

The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Chapter 14

The afternoon sun sprinkled through the canopy. Thousands of thin slicing rays danced on the blue ridge haze like long, spindly fingers. The rain had ceased and the warm breath of the day was upon the forest.

From around an oak and poplar, a small burst of light zipped through the branches at the speed of sound like a mad-dashing insect. It zigged, it zagged, and it trailed a brilliant streak of green and reddish orange behind it, ducking under fallen limbs and crashing through holly bushes and honeysuckle.

It was a faerie; specifically, one of the Yunwi Tsunsdi, and her name was Noya. Her skin was as green as the Kenai River. Translucent wings on her back shimmered red and orange when the sun hit them, yet glowed dim green in the shade. She wore a long, brown and red dress made from cardinal feathers, tied with sassafras stems, and sported a bloomed violet in her wavy, red hair which right now was straight as an arrow behind her, touching the end of her calves.

She raced for her life as an unfamiliar, large-headed bird with transfixed eyes, rapacious beak, gray-white wings, and deadly, hooked talons was hot on her heels and seeking feverishly to snatch a quick, albeit difficult, snack.

Noya’s day hadn’t been good from the start, except for the violet she had found that morning; for she always loved bright and lovely things, on account that she was a Laurel faerie, and the Laurel Clan always love merriment, beauty, and mischief.

She usually spent her days frolicking, swimming, and dancing in the sunlight. But ever since she had lost her home to that big, ugly oaf, four weeks prior, she had spent her days wandering in sadness around the forest. Thereafter, she searched for a place as beautiful as her home on the lake, but nothing could compare.

She had tried finding a place in a beautiful sugar-berry, but her store of blueberry scones and blackberry pudding was raided by ants the very next morning. The river pond wasn’t a good fit because the Rock Clan had already taken residence there, and had no patience for a little wild-child like Noya. Finally, she ended up on the far side of the enclave, at the north end of Newton; but after a week of thinking she had found a good home, this enormous, evil raptor came bounding out of the treetop for her and wouldn’t let up.

She had been picking violets under the rolling blue haze, near the shadow of the grazing whitetails, when the gray bird ambushed her. If it weren’t for the cautious doe’s sudden jolt, Noya would have been in the evil bird’s talons. She bounced off the ground and took to the air like a missile while the bird chased her like it had a mission sent from Hell.

All morning long she weaved and zipped through the forest, hugging the underbrush down low, her only advantage over the much faster bird of prey. She crossed south through Newton, cut west along Dark Canyon, and circled back northeast again up Merry-Hollow, before weaving over the Pactolus. but nothing could shake the determined deadly bird from her.

She was beginning to lose hope when she saw, just out of the corner of her lightning fast eye, an old chipmunk hole near Fool’s Pass, and she dove inside. The bird dropped on the hole a thousandth of a second later and thrashed at the roots and leaves, jabbing its long beak down the opening and screeching at her. The bird would not let up, and by its unabashed behavior, it was obvious it had some unknown score to settle.

Noya held her breath in the chipmunk chamber, waiting, waiting, and waiting. But, no matter how long she stayed put, the bird scurried and hopped about outside, perched on a maple sapling and intent on getting its meal.

In the darkness Noya’s wings glowed green, and beneath her, they revealed a passage opening a few feet below. Resisting her natural wisdom to fly back into the beautiful sunshine, she forced herself to crawl deeper into the earth like a mole.

Eventually the tunnel dropped her into a low chamber, surrounded by black, crystalline rock. Her glowing wings directed her through a labyrinth of vast and twisting tunnels entrenched by an underground river. Carefully, she fluttered along the chamber ceiling, keeping the splashing water away from her delicate wings.

Presently, claustrophobia set in and exhausted her. She became frantic, desperate for a way out. The danger of the hungry bird was gone, but no faerie likes to be away from the sun for an extended period of time. It is known that even at night, faeries will huddle together, naturally seeking one another’s dim glow. Therefore, the underground is unbearable to them; the stress of losing light can kill them, or what’s worse, make them bent and evil.

She fluttered in spastic rhythm above the river for a few more hundred yards, begging for light, until…There! At the end of a long, shimmering tunnel, a beam of golden blue light marked the way out.

Her heart leapt, and feverishly, she made her assent out of the darkness. But something stopped her; at first she suspected it sounded like the echoing caw of a raven, but after inclining her ear more intently, she discerned it was a voice screaming. More importantly, it was the cries of children, and no Yunwi Tsunsdi alive can resist the responsibility of helping a child in need.

Instinct outweighed her natural fears, and she turned back on herself, speeding through a series of tunnels toward the young voices. Confused and confounded by the notion of children down here, she kept racing forward until the tunnel came to the low opening of a monstrous chamber.

The river was very close to her now, but she managed to squeeze through without much water spritzing her wings. As she carefully flitted her way round the mouth of the passage, she saw four little heads bobbing in the river. Above them shone the ominous alluring light of the Uktena, lake serpent.

Panic and action filled her heart like the violent embrace a parent feels when they see their unsuspecting child about to step off a cliff. Uktena hadn’t revealed himself yet, but why were the children were not running away?

A deep, ugly hiss boomed in the cavern, and sent bats sprawling from the ceiling. Before she had time to zoom to the aid of the four children, she was getting pounded and beaten on all sides by foolish, discombobulated bats; their flapping black wings shrouded her path and made her lose all sense of direction.

There! The children had somehow got behind her, but—oh, no!—the Uktena had already revealed his monstrous glory; the spiked antlers protruding over his glowing crest.

His toxic fumes filled the chamber, and Noya gagged. The children were wildly swimming toward her; the Uktena dove into the water and serpentined after them. Noya kicked a brainless bat out of her way and flurried forward in the darkness.

***

The water palpated in little volcanoes underneath Aaron and the Dolor children; the stench poured down from above; they screamed into the water as they swam faster than they ever had in their short lives.

“Kep goin!” Aaron hollered. “Kep goin!”

Herbert looked away from the tail of the menacing monster as it dove beneath them, and peered ahead into the darkness. Over Aaron’s shoulder he saw the green light shimmering brighter and brighter, heading straight for them; it was an emerald faerie, zipping through the nonsensical flutter of the bats.

The red horn of the Uktena rose from the water beneath Marian; its blazing diamond-crest erupted next; she closed her eyes and kept swimming, bracing her heart for what was to come.

The emerald faerie was a lightning bolt upon them; she flew into Aaron’s face, barely missed him, halted, and exploded into a vibrant white flash. Light poured like soft milk through every crack of the chamber; the entire cucumber dome lit as if made of white fire; the water as bright as a beach on a summer day; the children and beast were blinded. A pair of ivory fangs snapped inches from Marian’s face before retreating underwater and swimming away from the bright light, as it slowly turned from white to gold to a dim emerald green.

But before the children could regain their senses, the river, much more rapid at the end of the tunnel, swept them through the narrow mouth at the north end and propelled them at topsy-turvy speeds through a series of underground passages. The children banked, left, right, up, down, over, in, and out, while keeping their heads up and growing fearful of what rocks they must avoid yet ever more relieved that they were gaining distance away from the Uktena.

After several minutes, the water slowed and they caught a glimpse of light ahead; smooth, slick rocks became rough, loose pebbles under their feet. They clasped one another’s hands and stood with the water up to their waists. The rushing water continued to pound them forward, onward to the cave outlet, but they were walking now, and far from Uktena’s chamber.

The water shallowed to a few inches. They gasped for breath, relieved, grateful, and collapsed in a laughing huddle of arms, legs, and spluttering tears.

On the top of Herbert’s head lay a little green faerie, gasping for air and visibly weak.

Esther stopped her cheering to watch the panting little faerie on Herbert’s head. “Are you alright, little pixie?” She asked gently.

Faeries cannot speak in our human languages, but Noya smiled and patted Herbert’s head while she closed her eyes to rest; her little chest beat up and down as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

“Thank you so much for saving us,” Marian whispered to the little lady. “We would be dead without you.”

Herbert gently put the sleeping faerie in his shirt pocket.

“We-all needs to get outta this cave,” Aaron said.